


Trouble is Clumsy

by Go_get_Jakes_gun



Series: Favourite Place [2]
Category: Loki: Agent of Asgard, Norse Religion & Lore, Thor (Comics), Thor (Movies)
Genre: BAMF Baldr, BAMF Frigga, BAMF Gaea, Divorce, Eros and Psyche esque, F/M, Family Tragedy, Forgiveness, Hurt and comfort, I don't think there'll be any smut, Incest, Intersex Jotunn (Marvel), Intersex Loki (Marvel), Loki is in dEEP SHIT, M/M, Mentions of Child Molestation, Moms being awesome, Mourning, Multi, Poor Loki, Poor Thor, Protective Thor, So Much Incest, Thor and Loki are related, because of course, but we'll see, this story is literally just incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-13
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:47:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 20
Words: 35,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24168340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Go_get_Jakes_gun/pseuds/Go_get_Jakes_gun
Summary: Sequel to Pretty Venom. Loki's in exile and lands on Midgard, the only place that lets him stay for more than a day. He's sad and lonely and missing Thor. Suddenly though, a seeming 'Guardian Angel' swoops in and promises to help him, but only if he can complete the tasks that she gives to him. The catch? The lady seems to have something against Loki and it constantly feels like she's trying to sabotage him.On the other side of the Solar system: Thor is in heavy denial about his feelings for Loki, but thankfully Frigga and Baldr exist. Also, Sif's off the table, so there's that.Aand finally, on Jotunheim, Loki's family tries to patch itself together after the traumatic events of Pretty Venom. Laufey and Farbauti are getting a divorce. It isn't going all that well.
Relationships: Angrboða | Angerboda/Loki (Norse Religion & Lore), Balder/Karnilla, Farbauti/Laufey (Marvel), Frigga | Freyja/Odin (Marvel), Jarnsaxa/Thor (Marvel), Laufey/Odin (Marvel), Loki (Agent of Asgard) & Verity Willis, Loki/Thor, Sif/Fandral/Hogun, Thor (Marvel)/Original Female Character(s)
Series: Favourite Place [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1741081
Comments: 90
Kudos: 106





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Partially inspired by Lang's Blueskin, thought of while watching Ragnarok (TV) here it is! :)
> 
> Thank you to @TorMist for putting up with my ramblings long enough for me to decide to go ahead with this!

Loki’s exile may have **_started_** on Svartalfheim, but he sure as hell wasn’t staying there! The heat was nigh unbearable, even in his lava monster form. And besides, he was Jotunn, he had been raised to hate these monsters.

Defeated, Loki journeyed through many realms before eventually stumbling upon one that he liked (hey, as long as it wasn’t Jotunheimr, he was free to travel). He was exhausted. A large part of why he had been unable to stay on realms very long was that people tended to be hostile to Odin’s kin. Oh they all loved their own mascot, but when it was **_another_** one of Odin’s children they booed and hissed at him. Double standards, or a sense of jealousy that they weren’t the only ones ‘blessed’ by the Realm Eternal? Though the courts themselves may have problems with the policy, villagers generally loved being visited by their overlords. How quaint. Or maybe they had heard of what he had done and looked down on him for it? Whatever the case, he didn’t stick around long enough to find out.

He slumped on a couch in the apartment he had ‘found’ in a new ‘up and coming’ development in Midgard. It was in Iceland, he had thought that it would be a good place to settle because, well, it had the word ‘Ice’ in it.

He’d been feeling unwell ever since he’d left Svartalfheim. He blamed it on his emotions, which had also been rather haphazard. He hadn’t decided yet what to do with Angrboda’s body, he was afraid to look at it. ‘ _It!? Just a week ago Angrboda was a_ ** _he_** _!’_ He thought to himself angrily. He felt big fat tears rolling down his cheeks. He wore a Midgardian skin here, like that of an Asgardian’s, as he wished not to blend in with the Midgardians. Now that he was out of sight and out of mind of Asgard, he had no doubt that **_someone_** he’d pissed off in the past 1000 years or so would put a hit out on him.

He wanted to undo it all. Every action that he had taken that day that he had run into Thor. Every single one had led him to the miserable life he now led.

On the one hand, if he had simply never asked Angrboda, if he had simply stayed put and been a good little Frostbitch like they had wanted him to be, then not only could he maybe be with Thor right now, but Angrboda would be **_alive_**.

On the other hand, if he had just used his magic to harm Thor’s hand and taken the opportunity to bolt- even just seven paces in that thick and heavy snow would have done it- he could have continued on his merry way and he’d be living happily with Angrboda. Who knows, maybe they could have gotten back together again. Whatever the case, Angrboda would have still been alive, and in this specific scenario, he never would have even _met_ Thor, would have never wanted him, **_craved_** him… never would have slept with him.

He shuddered. That had been one hell of an experience, certainly. Thor had waged a brutal war against his body, and he hadn’t been entirely sure who had come out victorious in all honesty. It had felt like they had each simultaneously lost and won.

He shook his head, mild tremors overtaking his body. No, it would not do good to fixate on the past. He was only thinking of Thor because of how badly he wanted someone to hold right now, **_some_** human contact. There was Boda’s corpse, but he wasn’t going to do that because **_no_**.

He would go outside and try to socialise, but he just wasn’t feeling it. Not today anyways, he reasoned, he had **_just_** found a place to sleep after a week of searching and an incomprehensible amount of seidr spent planet-hopping, he **_deserved_** to sleep here… on the couch… maybe.

Loki’s head fell against the armrest. He was bound to wake up with a sore neck the next day, but honestly, who even gave a damn anymore?

.

Thor hadn’t left his rooms in days, it had everyone worried.

Frigga had smiled, waved her hands, and assured everyone that he was just resting, that the fight had taken its toll on him, and that he’d be back to normal by the week’s end, as was customary whenever he returned from a campaign. Then, when none were looking, she went to go and see him herself. It would not do to have onlookers as she spoke to her boy.

“Thor, son, are you alright?” Frigga asked cautiously, stepping past the shards of pottery littering the floor. Looked like Thor had had a little too much to drink.

“I’m fine, mother.” Thor moaned, turning onto his back to face her. **_Wow_** he had let himself go. Frigga had a hard time believing that he could have done all of this in only 5 days. His shirt smelled like the stables, it was grey and ragged: a sharp contrast to the white linen he had worn while leaving Jotunheimr. The hairs on his beard were all out of place, and his hair looked as though it had enough knots in it to sell it as chainmail. Let’s not forget that his face was sagging slightly- had he _gained weight?_

“Son, what is the meaning of this!?” She asked scandalised, silently conjuring a charm to blot out the odour which was **_Thor_** , **_Asgard_** ** _TM_** ** _._**

“The meaning of what, mother? I am merely enjoying my last few days of freedom before father hands the crown down to me.” Thor said airily, as though everything were OK. Oh Thor, whywhywhywhywhywhyWHY!? This boy made her life difficult sometimes, honestly.

“Thor,” she said slowly. “Son, you must get out of this slump. It is not healthy, please. It is for your own good that I do this.”

“Do what, mother?”

With a wave of her hand, everything was clean, Thor’s bed was made beneath Thor, Thor’s beard and hair were neat, and he was in fresh clothes. “Son, we need to talk.”

“Talk about what, mother?” Oh his eyes, his sweet, blue, precious eyes were so fragile and trusting. It broke her heart knowing that his own was broken. Broken and he didn’t even know it.

“Son. Have I ever told you of this one time that your Aunt Freyja did something unforgivable?”

“Auntie Freyja did something!?” The infantile look in his eyes made the corners of her mouth dip downwards. He needed something to give him back his confidence, clearly, because whatever had gone down was messing with him severely.

“Yes, my sweet. You know how I treasure knowledge above all else? Well, this one time when we were girls still living with the Norns, your Auntie Freyja and I got into a huge argument and she tore the pages out of a book of spells that your grandmother gave me before she died.” Thor looked murderous, good.

“What happened.”

“I forgave her.”

Thor looked puzzled. “I thought you said what she had done was unforgivable.”

“Yes. But she is my family, and families do awful things to one another sometimes. It is important to be able to distinguish one act from a person’s personality. One act does not define you, multiple ones do.”

Thor thought on her words. “Mother, I know what you are doing. But what Loptr has done is unforgivable.”

“Loptr, huh?” She teased. “I thought that his name was Loki.”

“It was a fake name he gave, not a real one.”

“Well, now that he’s disowned it might as well be his name,” she shrugged bitterly.

“But it’s not even a real word.”

“Oh, and how would you know that?”

“I looked it up,” Thor admitted. “I had a lot of free time in that castle, so I browsed through a few name books in preparation for who I thought was going to be Loptr’s child’s birth.”

Frigga nodded. “Baldr tells me you two had quite the relationship.”

“Baldr sees things that are not there.”

“You say that as though it is a bad thing,” Frigga ran a hand through Thor’s hair. “Son. It is alright, you know, to forgive someone even if you know what they did was wrong. Not just alright, healthy in fact.”

Thor didn’t look convinced, but he acquiesced. “I will try for you, mother.”

“Good boy.” She kissed his cheek and walked out of the room. She was going to be having a word with Thor’s attendants for not forcing him to bathe at least once in the week.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :))))))) Remember when I said I have exams? I'm so gonna fail. This right here is me avoiding work.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I forgot to mention last chapter: This title comes from me not being able to pick between 'Trouble is' and 'Clumsy' for this work, because 'Trouble is' is SO Thor in this story, and 'Clumsy' sums up Loki. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, it's because I couldn't think of a title for the first fic, but I had serious ear worm for the song 'Pretty Venom' by All Time Low, so I called it that and decided to stick with the theme for the title of this one (and for the series title, cuz 'Favourite Place is sO THEM OMG!'
> 
> Sorry for the fangirl rant!

A day turned into a week which turned into a month. Loki had discovered this thing called ‘delivery’ and _Norns_ whoever thought of it was a godssend! He especially liked this place called ArchK for its chicken chowmein. Mmm, with a bit of salt thrown on top, it was downright delicious, soothing him everywhere that needed soothing.

He still hadn’t decided what to do with Angrboda’s body. He could bury it, he could give it the sendoff it deserved, he could… he could turn it into a Blood Lily. He could keep it from ever decaying, a momento in his hair. Tears streamed down his face and he choked down a sob. It hurt. It hurt every time he thought about it. _I love you_ , had been Angrboda’s last words, and Loki had been to caught in the moment to say them back, oh but he did: he did love Angrboda with everything he had in him! His chest hurt and his heart ached at every memory they shared together.

He was miserable. There, he said it. He was miserable and afraid and lonely and it all sucked. It sucked, it sucked, it **_sucked_**! Oh, he wanted _so hard_ to kick something right now! He stood up and stumbled a bit. It had been a while since he had last stood up, he was a bit disoriented, the feeling of blood rushing to his legs was painful. Loki stumbled over to a window and opened the curtains. He hissed as the light hit his face.

Fuck this. The longer he waited, the higher the odds of someone out in space discovering where he had kept Angrboda’s body and taking it for themselves. He turned him into a flower **_tonight_** , when the moon was full and his powers were at their highest despite being on a foreign planet where his seidr wasn’t that strong.

He panted for breath. He wasn’t used to this much physical exertion. He slumped against the wall. His feet and head hurt. He needed a drink. He wobbled over to the sink to get a glass of water. He didn’t have any cutlery so he magicked one up. His head felt greasy, urgh. Standing up this long was bad for him, he was going to be sick. He made his way over to the couch and tried to let the vertigo settle by lying flat on it. It didn’t work, he spewed.

He grimaced at the smell, nostrils drawn up, and waved a hand. Let someone in space run into it. Who gave a shit? He needed a gargle. He hobbled on over to the bathroom where he rinsed poured water into his mouth and took a good look at himself in the mirror. His eyes widened. He was **_hideous_**! He spat the water out quickly and dried his mouth. He hopped onto the bathroom scale (wow this showroom he stole was well-furnished). What in the Nine, he was fifteen kgs heavier than he was supposed to be! Oh no, oh no oh no oh no, what had happened to his flawless complexion and dashing looks!? He needed to fix this! No more fast food, he was going **_vegan_**! He snapped on some new clothes and left the apartment. He didn’t need money, he had seidr.

.

Loki walked to the supermarket with shades on. Veggies, he was here for veggies. He grabbed all of the vegetables that he could and put them on the till. The lady swiped them in and when she turned to him to pay he swiped his hand over her eyes. She smiled and let him through. He had learned that one from ‘Boda, he smiled sadly. As he was leaving, a woman put her hand on his arm.

He turned, in no mood for conversation. “I saw what you did there, to that woman.” Oh great, a purple-haired chick in a pair of black glasses that screamed ‘look at me, I’m edgy.’ He gritted his teeth and smiled insincerely.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Yes you do.” She frowned at him. “You’re not from earth, are you?” Loki was taken aback. He was forced to assess his newfound foe. She was… different, there was something-

“You have the ability to tell when people are lying,” his voice was monotone. “But you are no goddess.” He wasn’t entirely sure how he knew that, but he **_did_** know it.

The girl, Verity, blinked. “Why- how did you know?”

“I am an excellent liar,” he gave her a cheshire grin. “I know someone who works against my craft when I spot one.” He should leave, he should go, look at what happened the last time he ignored his rational thought in favour of following… whatever it was that made him do such frivolous things.

“Verity,” she extended a hand, “Verity Willis.”

“Loki, just Loki,” he shook it. “Tell me, Ms. Willis, what is someone with your accent doing in Iceland?”

“It’s a long story. What about you, Mr. E.T., what are you doing here on earth?”

“Long story. Come over to mine. I’ll whip you up a cup of tea.”

.

At the end of his story, Verity just shook her head. “I can tell that there are things you are lying about, but I’m pretty sure that those are mere ameliorations. The _main_ theme of your story though, wow, just **_wow_**.”

“Wow indeed.”

“Why would you even want to fuck your brother? He’s your **_brother_**!”

“I am royal and an alien, it is not so taboo where I come from. And girl, you have not seen **_Thor_** ,” he said, putting on a fake, over the top, exaggerated American accent, like the ones he had heard the month he’d spent on the couch binge-watching shows and hating life.

Verity shook her head. “I am sure that he is every bit as attractive as you say he is.” Golden hair like the morning sunshine. Eyes as blue as Skadi’s Ice Palace. An ass as solid as a rock. A tongue that could leave you immobile for days. She was Verity Willis, and she could not tell a lie, she low-key wanted to meet this guy. “But still, it seems as though your relationship with him is complicated.”

“It is.”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “Oh, I see. You like complicated, interesting.”

“I suppose I do,” Loki admitted. Usually a comment like that would get a rise out of him, but from her it wasn’t accusatory, it was just… an observation, like she felt nothing towards it, like someone might point out that the sun rises in the west (he heard it was the east on this planet) and sets in the east.

Verity paused for a moment. “Loki… don’t worry, whatever happens, it happens. You seem like an interesting character… but I can feel that there’s good in you. And good things happen to good people.”

Loki sighed. “I hope that you are right, Verity. Now let’s talk about you: you can’t just run away from cities because you hate all the liars.”

“Why not!?”

“You don’t run from your tormentors, you fight torment with more torment.” Verity burst out laughing. “Oh, Loki.” She glanced at her watch. “I should be going soon, I need to feed my cat.”

“Oh, where do you live, I could drop you?”

“Down the corridor.” Well, what do you know. “Thanks so much for tea, Loki! You should swing by some time, I’m Se92.”

“Alright,” he smiled. It was the first warm feeling he’d had in weeks. He was so glad to have met this girl.

.

Jarnsaxa walked around the house, hobbling, groaning, and throwing his weight around. Byleistr glowered, semi-furious. The bastard was showing off, trying to overplay his significance. Bitch, like you need to hobble, you’re barely a month pregnant! There isn’t even a bump yet, but you’re walking squat-legged like you’re about to pop out a full-grown an egg when Jotnar are **_mammals_**!

He hadn’t seen his mother in a week. Farbauti had moved out to the Country Estate in Vanaheim. Laufey was still working out the terms and conditions with his mother. Byleistr gritted his teeth. What, what in their parents’ lives had changed **_so much_** in the past month that **_now_** was the time they chose to get a divorce!?

He wanted to see his mother badly. Poor Farbauti, he must be suffering so. He was such a tender-hearted man. Byleistr vividly remembered a play that they watched on Vanaheim, in which the lead protagonist died trying to save his mother. Farbauti had sat there and watched. _Laufey_ , the brute, booed and had said that it was counterproductive. His stupid sire just couldn’t stop ruining everything, now could he?

.

Loki gathered the oil and red essence he would need to give Angrboda a proper tribute and went out into the woods. The cold felt delightful against his skin, and he appreciated the dark, the sunlight had been a little bit disorienting.

He stopped among a patchwork of trees that all looked to be different species. Perfect, a place where he could be at one with nature. He lit a ring of fire using the oil and poured the red essence all over the ground. He deposited Angrboda’s body into its centre and bent down next to it. This was the last time he would ever see his beloved ever again, and he couldn’t help but take the time to look at him properly, to drink him in.

His face was a bit crooked because of the beating that Byleistr had given him. His limbs crushed and disjointed, but there was still, even in his death, something about him that screamed **_power_**. Something, even in his crooked-state that all-but-yelled **_handsome_**. And a peaceful look over his deceased face that read **_kind_**. Everything that Loki had fallen in love with in the first place.

He mumbled the spell, tripping over the words a little, but it didn’t make it any less effective. Angrboda’s body shimmered for a moment before shrinking down. It didn’t look like a Blood Lily, but was beautiful nonetheless. It was more of a blue-tulip than anything, really. Loki picked it up and put it in his hair, stifling back a sob. At least he got to keep Boda in all of this. He had long known that Boda would be the only staple in his life… look at where that had led.

“Young man,” a woman’s voice called out form behind him. Confused, Loki turned around. It was dark, and yet he could inexplicably make out all of her features. Caucasian with brown hair and a blue diadem, she must be a goddess, but he had no idea who. Whatever mystical power that had allowed him to identify Verity had **_not_** led him to identify this woman. “I believe we haven’t met.”

“Who are you?”

And then she smiled, and as the King of Insincere Smiles, he knew this was one of them. “They call me the Earth Mother. And I am here to make you atone for your sins.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I forgot to mention last chapter: Loki gained 15 kgs. This is because I thought that it would be realistic for him to gain about 5 kgs in a month living his lifestyle, but then I remembered that in Marvel Canon Asgardian's (and I'm fairly certain Aesir too) have triple the body density (I think that's what you call it) that humans do, so I was like 'Oh... 5*3 then')

The Earth Mother, or ‘Gaea’ as she called herself, was a rather intimidating woman. She radiated an aura of power and authority, and contrary to Loki’s prior belief, ‘atoning for his sins’ did **_not_** mean duking it out to the death with her.

She even offered him a cup of tea! That was oddly nice for such a scary woman. “Loptr Odinson- do not look so surprised, I am the Supreme Governess of this planet, of course I know who you are.”

“Who are you?”

“I just said. I am the Supreme Governess, the Earth Mother. And you are trespassing.”

“I apologise, I will leave Midgard.” Anything to get away from this creep.

She shook her head. “I am not saying that you need to leave. I am merely a goddess trying to help a fellow god.”

“I’m not a god.”

She smiled at him. Norns he hated those smiles. “Nevertheless, I am here to help you. I understand that you desire Prince Thor’s heart.” Loki’s silence was taken as an affirmative. “I can help you get it.”

“How?” Loki frowned up at this woman. There was something fishy about her, unpleasant almost.

She smiled at him. She did that a lot, didn’t she? But it was just so hard to ignore. The way her lips tightened over her mouth like stretched canvas, pink in the standard disturbingly symmetrical way that was common amongst gods. Her eyes crinkled green. This lady was so unlike anyone he’d ever met, and yet she claimed to represent the Earth. Hmph, the royals truly were getting out of touch with commoners. “I have several tasks in mind.”

“And how would completing tasks for you help my odds with Thor?”

A twinkle shone in those dangerous green eyes of hers. “Oh, us gods are all well-acquainted. Believe me when I say, Loptr, I can get you with him. I’m on close terms with both Odin and Frigga, I could even get you un-banished.”

“Oh, and why would I care about that? If you will not dispel me, then who is to say that I would not prefer to stay on earth?”

Jackpot! Her eyes seemed to read as she raked over him. “I know your future, Loptr. I have seen it, as have others. Do not believe for even a moment that somebody from a lesser realm would not use divination to steal what is yours… think about it.” She clicked her fingers and Loki found himself back in his apartment all of a sudden.

So weird.

.

Loki couldn’t stop thinking about the strange woman and that stranger bargain that she’d struck with him. Why had he even admitted to wanting Thor? _Did_ he want Thor? He didn’t think that he wanted Thor. And besides, why would Thor want him, after everything that Loki had done.

Being forced to fuck with your brother was one thing. Falling _in_ _love_ with him was a whole other messed up. ‘ _Half_ ,’ his mind supplied, unhelpfully. ‘Your _half_ brother.’ _So are ‘Blindi and By, I wouldn’t fall in love with them!_

Loki contemplated a visit to Verity, she seemed knowledgeable and otherworldly. He shook his head, they’d met **_today_** , surely it was too soon to become a pest. Especially now, at 2 am in the morning.

.

Verity woke with a start at the ringing of her alarm clock. It felt too early. She looked around her still-dark room, and her gaze fell on the man beside her bed. _Intruder_ , she sat up. But how had he gotten in past her cats. Very well, if this was how she went, then at the very least she could maim the guy.

She heard a click and the lights were on.

_“Loki_!?” She screeched.

“In the flesh, darling,” he smirked at her.

She was about to kill a man. “What are you- how did you get in here!?”

“I teleported.”

“I thought that you said your powers were weaker on earth.”

“They are, but you literally live down the hall. Back home I could teleport across a world in the right conditions.”

“Well, what are you doing here, at,” she glanced at the clock. “ _2:07 AM!?_ ”

“I need your advice.”

“In?”

“A woman, well, a _goddess_ ran into me.” He began. “I do not know her, I do not know _of_ her, she calls herself the Earth Mother, does that ring a bell by any chance?” At Verity’s blank expression, he assumed an answer and continued. “Well, anyways, she said I must pay for my sins, and that if I complete tasks for her, she can help me win Thor’s heart.”

Verity’s face softened. “Do you trust her?”

“I do not know. She did not seem dishonest in **_that_** regard, but everything else about her screams bad news.”

“Well, how badly do you want to be with Thor?”

“Very.” He admitted. He had given himself the appropriate 1.5 minutes to think long and hard about it before jumping into Verity’s place.

“It seems dodgy… but if Thor’s the one you really want, then, well…” she thought about it. “At least ask her **_how_** exactly she’s going to get him to fall for you.”

“I tried. Her response was all ‘I’m a god, Thor’s a god, we gods meet, you know?’. She’s a very dodgy character like that.”

Verity nodded. “Well, if you run into her again, then just ask her ‘so?’ Or say that you won’t agree to the task unless she gives you the specifics.”

Loki smiled. “Thanks, V. I knew coming to you was a good idea.”

“It won’t be if you barge in at 2 in the morning again. Now _good_ ** _night_!** _”_ Loki took his cue and exited the apartment.

.

The Royal Family were sat at the table. It was Thor’s first ‘public’ appearance in weeks.

“Come now, son, do not be so glum. I understand that what happened on Jotunheimr was traumatic.” Odin tried. Connecting with the youth was so difficult these days, they were so moody and always on their iphones. “Maybe a day out with your friends? Sif has been waiting on you, you know. She has missed her best-friend.” He pressed. **_Norns_ , **_could Thor just hurry up and marry the woman already!?_

“That sounds nice.” Thor nodded, disinterested.

And that was the end of the conversation. For the rest of breakfast, they all sat there in an awkward silence, fiddling with their food until it was all off of the plate.

After Thor and Baldr left, Odin turned to Frigga. “What is wrong with Thor?”

“I do not know.” Frigga admitted. “I think something happened to him on Jotunheimr.”

“That much is obvious, but what?”

_I think he might have_ ** _really_** _liked that Loki of his, but I am unsure and it would be unwise to comment on it_. “I am unsure.”

Odin nodded, sadly. “I am unused to seeing him like this.”

“Yes. Usually his sadness is accentuated with rage. Nowadays all we get is never ending showers.”

“Agreed.”

“Freyja will be arriving in a few days.”

“Your sister?” Like, the one Odin had slept with? **_While_** married to Frigga? Oh, that’d be awkward. _Urgh_ , was she bringing that husband of hers too?

“Of course.” Frigga was certain that what plagued Thor was matters of the heart. She needed her sister’s advice on what to do and how to progress.

Freyja was the Goddess of Love, after all, she’d know what to do.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a while, hasn't it? Haha, well, I'm officially half-done with exams, only three more to go! :P

Thor was surprised that Aunt Freyja was coming to visit. He knew what this must be, this must be another attempt at making Odin see reason about Baldr and Karnilla: the two were **_made_** for each other, it was so easy to see. I mean sure, she had done things in the past, horrible things, crimes against Asgard, but she’d made up for them, and she hadn’t been a pest for like five centuries. And besides, Baldr was trusting, but he wasn’t naive ( _well…_ ). He was as good for her as she was for him.

Thor lounged on his bed, staring up at the ceiling. He really ought to do something today. His mother had been encouraging him to go out more and play with his friends. Thor was still a little tired from that trip. That fight against Angrboda felt like it had sucked the life out of him. Never in his life had he encountered such a powerful foe. He couldn’t help but wonder how many others like Angrboda were out there, just waiting to take him down.

He couldn’t stop thinking about everything that had been in front of him. All the signs that he had missed. Loki hadn’t seemed like a cheater, and yet he had bought Jarnsaxa’s comments word for word. Was it truly so easy for him to be manipulated like that? Living with the knowledge that at the end of nearly two months everything that you had learned had been a lie was heartbreaking. The idea of being deceived so easily was jarring. It made him not want to go out much anymore. Who knew who else was lying to him?

.

Thor heard a knock on his door. It must be his mother, come to check on him, he reasoned.

Aunt Freyja’s head popped in. “Yoohoo, Thor,” she smiled at him, a traditional Vanir greeting.

“Aunt Freyja, I was unaware that you had arrived,” he gaped.

“Your mother was worried about setting you off. May I come in?”

“Of course!” He immediately got up and made his bed so that he could offer her a place to sit.

“Thor, how was your trip to Jotunheimr? I have heard that it did not go so well.”

“Yeah, Prince Loptr ran away and they replaced him with his cousin.”

“I see.”

“And then I ran into Prince Loptr and he lied and said his name was Loki. And then he spent the two months with us.”

“Oh, Loki, that’s a nice name. What does it mean?”

“Nothing, it’s made up, I checked when looking for a baby name for mine and Jarnsaxa’s child.”

Freyja nodded in understanding, wrapping an arm around her nephew. “It’s got to hurt, knowing that someone you trusted had been lying to your face for the entirety of your acquaintance. But that is no reason to not go out and enjoy the sunlight. Tell me more about this Loki.”

“Why do you care?”

“He is my nephew, just as you are.” Freyja was Frigga’s sister, but she was also Odin’s cousin. Loki was just as related to her as Thor was.

“Well, his _real_ name is Loptr, just to clarify, and he is a monster. He would have willingly laid down thousands of lives just to get out of his duty.” Freyja nodded in understanding, that was problematic. Royals were _always_ supposed to put their kingdoms first, it was duty above all else. Not that everybody did, and she was **_well aware of it_**! Her own husband had been against her sleeping with Odin, but she had done it for the good of her people. She was born and raised Vanir, her duty to her people ran in her veins. “I just… I don’t get it. Why would he do it!? We had sex anyways!” He ranted. “He had a million and one opportunities to come clean, but opted not to!”

“Would you have been less upset had the revelation come from his mouth?” Freyja asked, softly.

“Yes.” Thor pouted. “It wouldn’t have erased what he’d done, but it would have made it better.”

“You know, you talk a big game about royal duty, Thor, but by sleeping with whom you perceived to be a peasant, you yourself were in breech of it.” His aunt pointed out, running a hand through his locks, as gold as hers, though she knew that he got it from his mother’s side. Gaea was so flippant when it came to her appearance. One moment she was Gaea, then she was Jord, then she was Terra! Girl, pick a personality dammit! “I do not blame you. I understand that this betrayal came as a shock, and I know what it is like to truly love someone.”

“What?”

“You love Loki.”

“No I don’t.”

“Yes you do.”

“No I don’t.”

“Yes.”

“Aunt Freyja, do you realise how absurd it would be to fall in love with someone in just under two months? I barely even **_like_** him!” Thor let out a deep held breath.

Freyja’s eyes twinkled. “My boy, you have found in Loki the perfect foil, the one who completes you as you are, you have found your soulmate.” She felt a deep frown mar her gorgeous face as the sound of laughter rang through her ears.

“My dear aunt, you must be mistaken! The only person I have romantic interest in is Sif.”

“No you don’t, and she’s dating Fandral and Hogun at the same. It’s polyamorous, consensual, they’re adults, and they all want it, so don’t you even start with me,” his aunt wagged a slender finger in his face.

“Oh.” Well, Sif hadn’t told _him_ that. Sif… which one was that again? The woman, probably. He vaguely remembered four fuzzy shapes in his head. How long had it been since he’d last been outside again?

Freyja smiled at Thor. “Sweetheart, it’s alright to be scared. Love **_is_** scary, especially for a young god such as yourself. But when have you, The Great Allmighty Thor, ever let your fear get in the way of doing what must be done.”

“Aunt, this must **_not_** be done. Aside from the fact that what you’re saying is insane, with all due respect, I _would_ be required to marry someone eventually, and if you’re implying that I ought to marry him… well, then that would be a huge mistake. He is selfish and vain and problematic at best-”

“Hey! I thought you shipped Baldr x Karnilla!” Freyja pouted.

“I do, but _Karnilla_ is not going to end up as Queen of Asgard.”

“She is Queen of Nornheim.”

“Yes, and she represents them well. Loptr would **_not_** represent Asgard well in the slightest!”

“And why not?”

“Asgard stands for peace and unity.” At the expense of _others_ , Freyja thought bitterly. “Loptr is chaos incarnate.”

“Maybe you could change him,” Freyja suggested. “He is **_your_** soulmate after all.”

“Well I’ve never believed in soulmates, and I won’t start now. Loptr is problematic, and if anything I am **_glad_** he is out of my life.”

.

“So?” Frigga asked, anxious.

“Just like you said, he’s in love.”

.

Helblindi was as unaware of why Laufey was divorcing Farbauti as Byleistr and Jarnsaxa were. Sure, he was arguably the closest to Laufey, but his father was still a _very_ secretive man.

Helblindi was worried. Did Laufey blame Farbauti for Loki’s actions? Urgh, Laufey was such a brute sometimes. 

Helblindi was also unhappy with how comfortable Jarnsaxa had become in Loki’s old position. Maybe it was just a want for his own sibling back, but every time he saw the man sitting in Loki’s seat (there were 12, he **_literally_** could have sat anywhere else!) Or lounging on Loki’s bed (there were 208 rooms in the castle dammit) he got mad. Maybe, again, it was just him being upset about his sibling being stripped of his status, but Helblindi didn’t like Jarnsaxa’s presence here one bit.

He tried to talk to By about it, but By was keeping to himself lately for some reason. Honestly, was he that upset about killing some runt Jotun? Byleistr had declined to comment on it, but anyways, murder wasn’t a crime on Jotunheimr when it was done in battle, and from what he had seen, it looked like a fight had broken out between the runt and Loki, so By was well within his right to kill him.

Sometimes it felt like Helblindi was the only damned person in their castle with any semblance of common sense, honestly. He should just go away for a year and let them all burn Jotunheimr to the ground without him.

.

Loki took a deep breath and closed his eyes. “Earth Mother, I wish to talk to you.” He opened his eyes and he was in her lair once more.

“Ah, Loptr, come, sit.” She gestured to a chair.

“Must we be so formal?”

“It is only right that I use your birth name,” her eyes twinkled, knowingly. “Now, what is it that you wish to talk about?”

“You said that if I completed your tasks, you would help me be with Thor, but didn’t say any more than that. I somehow doubt that Thor would be with someone just because another god told him to, so tell me, how _exactly_ do you plan to do that? I want specifics, or else I shall not agree to anything.” He stuck to Verity’s advice. She was the wisest alien he’d ever met. He stared at her resolute, to let her know that he would not budge from his line of questioning.

“I can make you a god.” And then her green eyes shone gold, light seeming to radiate from them into the room, illuminating it. It was scary and yet beautiful in an otherworldly sense. He nearly pissed himself.

“Deal.” Loki breathed, utterly mystified.


	5. Chapter 5

Loki’s first task, as the Earth Mother had called it, was to win a fight against the Great Herestacles. Loki had no idea who or what this ‘Herestacles’ was. The Earth Mother had said that he had been causing mayhem on her ‘turf’, and by that he assumed that she meant earth. She had pointed him in the direction of her gardens, but he had trouble finding anyone ‘Great’ in there, just a bunch of fauna all prancing around. Yikes, she truly was a goddess, wasn’t she?

“Herestacles!” Loki called out. “Show yourself, you coward!”

Loki felt a pounding against his head, and distantly realised that the world had tilted himself. Oh, he was on the floor, wasn’t he? Atop him stood a hulking figure, huge and looming, with a giant nose. Loki sprang to his feet, only to realise that the man was actually about three feet tall. _A gnome_ , his voice supplied, he remembered running into a few with Angrboda back on Vanaheim.

“What do you want?” Herestacles boomed, his voice shaking the trees.

“You need to leave earth,” Loki stated, his voice flat.

Herestacles’s laugh nearly made the earth crack. “And why would I do that?”

“Because the Earth Mother sent me!”

“Gaia? You can tell her to _fuck off_! Honestly, she’s had her tits in a twist ever since she heard about that dude up in whats-it,” he gestured. “Up.”

Loki was desperate, and in a need to get this whole task over and done with. He also kind of needed to pee. If he were less impatient, he might be able to practice the self-restraint necessary to stop himself and ask Herestacles ‘who is this Gaia you speak of? Is she the Earth Mother? What are her powers?’ Instead, he just dove straight at the little gnome, intent on beating him into submission.

The gnome dodged him, burrowing into the ground and popping up behind him. It tripped him and made a break for it. Loki’s powers were weak on this planet, but not non-existent. He tried to transform himself, but that didn’t work (of course it didn’t work, he was so stupid, his shapeshifting was his life-source, a gift from **_Jotunheimr_** which was a land he had now abandoned), so instead he caused the grass to grow into a little cage with which to capture the gnome.

This did not work either.

The gnome then tried to send a stag after him, Loki cast a little gender bending spell on that deer. Boy was ‘he’ confused :) but at least he didn’t have to deal with antlers. The gnome found that he couldn’t escape an almost ‘box like’ patch of grass. Grinning with a broken tooth (did I mention that the gnome came at him and went for the face at some point? Well, he did), Loki put the box he’d been working on over the gnome. Time to take him to the Earth Mother.

.

“Here you go!” Loki grinned, partially-toothless and limping (the gnome had also kicked him in the crotch- geez, how much of that fight was he barely cognisant for?) towards where the Earth Mother sat on her throne.

“Good.” She smiled. And a ring of fire manifested itself around Herestacles in his cage. “This is the last time you invade my Sacred Fields again!” She swished her hand and he was gone.

“Where did he go?” Loki asked, not quite feeling bad, but curious nonetheless.

“Nidavellir. He shall serve time there as a smith,” she shrugged. It was a nice thing to do technically, but gnomes hated work, everyone knew that. It was literally the only difference between gnomes and dwarves: gnomes were ‘jolly’ trouble-makers, dwarves were skilled professionals, hard workers. It would do Herestacles good, truly. “If he develops a sense of self-discipline then _perhaps_ I will allow him back into my domain.”

Loki nodded. He had never been to Nidavellir, but he had heard that the people there were noble. Hopefully this hooligan would find his peace there. _Hahahahaha_! Syke! Like Loki gave a shit about this dude. Honestly! Bye bye little gnome! _Good riddance_!

“You have done well for today, Loki. I shall need time to think of my next challenge for you. You have earned some reprieve until then.”

“Thank you, Earth Mother!”

.

Loki took a week-long nap in his apartment. Eventually, he heard some knocking on the door. **_Verity_** , she was the only one who knew where this apartment was who would bother knocking first. He smiled at her simplicity as he walked over to the door to let her in.

“How did your meeting with the Earth Mother go? You never told me.”

“It went alright. She gave me a task, to battle the Great Herestacles.”

“Oh! Who is that?”

“It was a gnome,” Loki shared his tale with her, at her puzzled look.

“ _Gaia_ ,” Verity hummed. “In Greek Mythology she is the goddess of the earth. Could it possibly be her?”

“Maybe. Though I doubt it. Until now she has not revealed her identity to me, I doubt that she would have let a gnome let it slip if it were the case. Not with the kind of power she has. Perhaps it is just a pseudonym for her?”

“Sure, that is a possibility too… Loki, you’re a little pale, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing, nothing’s wrong, why?” Verity frowned. Loki was telling the truth. Peculiar, wasn’t it? He didn’t usually tell the truth. 

“Nothing, never mind. Do you have any grub?”

“No, I at it all.”

“I thought you said you were on a diet,” she teased, poking at his belly, her eyes widening at teeny, tiny little flap of skin not budging. She pressed it again. “Woah, that’s pretty solid.”

“What is?”

“Your stomach.”

“Well of course it is, I have _abs_!”

“Not abs…” she pressed it again. “Loki, did you eat a bowling ball again? Or the tv remote or something?”

“No, why?”

She shook her head. “Well, nevermind, you know your b body better than I do. You’re an alien species to me, if you’re unconcerned, I’m unconcerned.”

And damn straight was he not concerned. Those kind of hints could only have implied that he was pregnant or something, and he couldn’t be pregnant because he’d had _no sex_ during his last heat. He shook his head as well. “I can order in.”

“Sure, what do you want?”

“Pizza?”

“Sounds lit.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp, Chem's over :D Yayyyy! :)))))


	6. Chapter 6

Loki was determined to prove Verity wrong. He walked down to the drug store the next day and ‘bought’ a home pregnancy test. He couldn’t wait to rub this in her face. He was doing this for her, he told himself, just for her.

Two hours later and he had no idea what to do. How could he even be pregnant!? He’d had no sex with anyone outside of his heat. He froze. Wait a second: who was the father!? He’d had sex with Thor who was a fertility god, sure, but he’d had _much_ more sex with Angrboda. Much, _much_ more sex, in many different positions. Wow, was being horny a symptom of pregnancy? It sure felt like it.

He needed help.

.

“Loki, what the fuck!? It’s 1 am!”

“Verity, I’m _pregnant_ ,” he gestured at his stomach.

Verity’s jaw slammed shut. What the fuck!? Loki was _pregnant_!? “How!?” She spluttered. “I thought that you were male!?”

“I am _technically_ both,” Loki offered, “on Jotunheimr everyone has both sex organs, everyone goes by ‘he’ though, unless you are a frost bitch, then you’re whatever your frost stud calls you.”

“That sounds barbaric.”

“It is, but _I don’t live there anymore_!” At least of that he could be happy. “Anyways, I’m pregnant.”

“Is it… is it _Thor’s_?” Verity’s voice came out as little more than a whisper.

“Yes.”

“You’re lying.”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “It might be Thor’s, it might not be.”

“How far along are you? When do you give birth!? Are you going to raise it on your own.”

Loki contemplated each question with a second’s thought. “About a month and a half- nearly two months, I give birth in what you mortals call ‘April’, and yes, I suppose that I will be raising the cild on my own, or at least until Thor finds out.” He doubted that Thor would leave him alone with this child.

Verity very clearly understood what he meant by that, because she simply nodded. “Is it a boy or a girl?”

“That I do not know yet. I am not the most well-versed on healing spells, and I am no midwife, I shall have to check this through with one of your mortal physicians.”

Verity nodded. “Come on then, let’s look for one.”

“Thanks,” he smiled at her. Maybe they could raise this kid together? Even if he didn’t know who the father was, it would surely be fun raising a kid with one’s best-friend.

.

The doctor said that it was too early to know whether the baby was a boy or a girl. Loki had used his seidr to mask his cock: they just thought him an odd-looking woman. They left the hospital and went out for ice-cream.

Completely unaware, of course, that they were being watched.

.

Thor was out riding with his friends. His father had forced him into it. His horse, Gullfaxi, seemed sad. Odd.

They rode past streams and rivers and lakes, and yet nothing interested Thor.

Until, of course, Sif suggested that they go to a tavern.

Then things got wild.

.

The woman Thor took to bed was lithe, with green eyes and black hair, she had a look of mischief about her that Thor just couldn’t resist. Especially not after eight pints of pure _alcohol_ were poured down his throat by other beautiful women, all of whom were roaming their hands over his chest, discarding his clothing, playing with his nipples and man parts.

Alas, he was in no mood for a gangbang, he just wanted to slake his sexual thirsts with the one lady for tonight. But he made a mental note to come back soon.

He lifted up her legs and went to town on her nether regions, licking and slurping and nibbling on those perfect dark pink folds of hers. She mewled and gasped for breath, but he wasn’t going to let her out that easily. He moved upwards, taking a dusky nipple into his mouth and sucking for dear life whilst fingering her open on his big, thick fingers. He just rammed them upwards, at an angle sure to brush her clitoris, and she squealed and clenched around him. Perfect. 

He began to move himself in. It was nice, fucking into someone with their walls clenching so tightly around you, drawing you in and yet also holding you in place to an extent, never mind that, he pushed in more and more and then started fucking her in all earnest, enjoying the sounds she made.

He spilled outside of her. He didn’t want to sire any non-essential bastards, and he wiped his cockclean on the sheets. After all, he’d already paid for this room for the night, they’d have to change them anyways, it was law in Asgard for hospitality establishments to change sheets after a guest left.

“Thank you.” He panted.

“You’re welcome.” Her smile was painted in his head for days to come.


	7. Chapter 7

From what Helblindi had heard, mother had gotten the Vanir Estate. He decided to go and see him. After all, it wasn’t like Laufey had any right not to tell him to go. This whole mess was Laufey’s fault. Helblindi didn’t understand how his father could do something like this to the frost bitch who had been so loyal and faithful to him for the past thirty millennia!

He hopped on his ice dog, a big, thirteen-foot tall thing called Ivaldi, and rode off to meet his mother.

.

Thor had seen his newfound mistress three more times that week alone. A beautiful thing she was, her name was Igrun, he enjoyed the pleasures of her body very much. She was beautiful, charming, voluptuous but not to the extent that it didn’t suit her body. There was something about her too, her smile, the melodic tone of her voice. He was smitten, he was sure of it.

This. This would be his new summer romance, his way to get over the pains of the past three months (wow, it had been a while).

.

“Thank you Baldr,” Frigga kissed her son’s cheek. He had just told her that Thor had gone off to see Igrun again.

She felt guilty, of course, but it really had been Odin’s idea. He should not have said ‘Thor just needs a good fuck to get him out of this stupid stupor of his’ while Frigga was in the room. Frigga had used her pools as well as her communications with the Norns and her sister to decide how best to approach this, what form of lover would help Thor the best.

She had debated between a man or a woman, but Verdandi had told her that either would suffice, that Loki had the ability to change genders anyways. So she had opted for a female prostitute, they were easier to find after all, and then she had gone to a tavern disguised as an old hag and gifted an opal necklace to the girl. “It will give you great fortune,” she had guaranteed her. And she was damn right, people overcharged when it came to royalty. And besides, it helped her career greatly that she was bedding _the_ heir of Asgard, Prince Thor himself. People obsessed with Thor were going to be paying triple her normal rate just to fuck the same prostitute Thor was so enamoured with.

Really, what she had done was right, she promised herself. Now all that was left to do was to convince Thor that the grudge against Loki was not worth it, that he should let his heart do the talking this time (he’d had a hard time with doing so ever since Odin once made fun of him for it. Honestly, Frigga could see why he would do so: being diplomatic was essential when it came to ruling a kingdom, but it had definitely changed Thor, partly for the better, but also partly for the worse. It was never a good idea for an adult to make fun of a child, it had been shortly after Thor had been forced to leave Jord, he was still so sensitive back then. She still had a bite mark from a time that he had bit her in anger [she told Odin that it had been a dog]).

.

“Ten months left,” Verity burst into Loki’s apartment, a grin on her face, her work done for the day. “You know, if you’re getting bored, you could always try working. Then you could actually pay people for a change.”

“I know, I know,” Loki yawned. “But what would I even do? I have no skillset.”

.

“Look, Arnold, all I’m saying is that if you die, 200 million will set your family up nicely. Yes, I know that that’s an extra 50000ISK a month, but trust me, it’s worth it,” Loki twirled a pen, his silver tongue bleeding through the phone. “Excellent, I’ll sign you up. Thank you.”

Insurance sales rep, why hadn’t he thought of it before!? He got 5% commission on all sales that he made with a monthly 100000ISK starting salary, 50000ISK? He just made 2500 ISK in less than ten minutes! Genius! 

.

Gaia showed up that night. Made sense, she usually came around to spoil his fun.

“You have a new quest,” she smiled, sickly sweet. “My sceptre, I am in need of a new one, I need you to go to Nidavellir to have one forged.”

“Um, I can’t travel that far, my seidr is not working very well.” He didn’t utter the words ‘I’m pregnant’, somehow he didn’t feel as though he could trust the Earth Mother with that information. There was something dangerous about her that he didn’t like. He didn’t want her energy touching his kid.

“Don’t worry, I will send you.” She snapped her fingers and he was on Nidavellir. Son of a biscuit!

He marched towards where he knew the dwarves lived on this planet. Might as well get this over with. He was missing Spongebob. And he had an appointment in three days with the doctor, that was important too.

.

Helblindi arrived at his mother’s new estate three days later. The guards let him in. He walked into the room to see a dismayed looking Farbauti sitting next to some half-eaten soup.

“Mother, are you alright? What has happened?” Helblindi asked his dam.

“Nothing, nothing son.”

“You have not touched your meal.”

“I am not hungry. Tell me, what ails you so that the Crown Prince of Jotunheimr had to leave his father’s kingdom behind?” Farbauti gave him a wry smile.

“You are my mother, I had to come and check on you.”

“Of course you did. You’ve always been such a good boy, caring for others. Has your father told you why we divorced yet?”

“No,” but he damn well wanted to find out.

“Good, because he has not let me know.” A lie but a necessary one, Farbauti reasoned. He had to agree with Laufey on this: it was probably for the best that the boys did not know. No amount of Farbauti pleading with Laufey to see reason, telling him he’d never touched the son that Laufey hadn’t even wanted anyway, had been enough to sway his husband’s decision. Hmph, if he didn’t know any better, he’d say that Laufey was acting as a parent. Must be all his oestrogen kicking in, Farbauti thought to himself bitterly.

“Mother, what father has done to you: sending you away, effectively banishing you… it is not right. Mother, I promise you that as soon as I am king you will be reinstated in the palace.”

“And you will send your father out here?”

“Aye.” Farbauti perked up and rubbed his son’s cheek. 

“Good boy.”

.

Loki found the dwarves’ village after a three hour walk. Wow, his feet were swelling, he wondered if it was just the kid causing it, or if he really _had_ gotten out of shape. He ought to stop eating all that fast food… and he would as soon as the baby was born.

“Hello!” Loki called.

A dwarf came out. “What do you want?” He was four feet tall with a heavy rust-coloured beard and beady little eyes. For something so small, he was quite terrifying.

“Um, Gaia sent me. She needs a new sceptre.”

“Do you have any money for it?”

“Um, well, no. How much would one cost?”

“Well, it’s for a god, so about 1500000009 units.” Loki’s eyebrows shot up.

“Any chance of a discount?” He tried.

The dwarf let out a mean-sounding laugh and kicked Loki in the shin before hobbling off.

“Gaia!” Loki called out, through gritted teeth. “May I please have the money to complete this transaction?” No response. “Gaia!?” He tried again. Curse that abominable bitch, he supposed he’d just have to figure a way to do this himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No shade was intended to be thrown at insurance sales reps, it was just a job I thought Loki'd be able to do well.


	8. Chapter 8

He bought Igrun a shiny necklace. It was made of rubies and gold and sapphires and pearls. Igrun graciously accepted it and wore it around her neck. He didn’t make love with her that night, instead he rubbed her feet while she told him about her life.

Yes, he knew that doing such deeds with a prostitute was remarkable, but he honestly didn’t care if people talked about their odd prince and his odd delights. He was happy here, happier than he’d ever been. Well, happier than most moments of his life anyways.

.

Loki went to town again and again and again, until eventually he ran into two bickering dwarves.

“Hello, what is the problem here?” He asked them.

“Aldric insists that he can build a better sword than me.”

“I said my brother and I could build a better weapon than any that your brother and you could build, Sindri.” Aldric retorted.

Perfect. This was his chance.

“Why don't you have a competition? A sceptre worthy of a god.”

“Bah, and what would the winner get?”

“Whatever they want.”

“I want a tome from Abalzab.”

“I want your neck.” Sindri said, his voice flat.

“Deal,” Loki agreed, confidently, now all he’d have to do was make sure that Sindri and whoever his brother was lost.

.

Loki’s shapeshifting abilities, likely on account of his pregnancy, were _not_ working. His initial plan had been to masquerade as some animal or the other and distract Brok (who could have guessed that _that_ was Sindri’s brother? Oh well, with his luck…) and Sindri, but that wasn’t going to happen. He needed something else.

He snuck into the forge at night and added a bit of his seidr to their creation. It couldn’t be perfect if it consisted of impurities, surely.

He stared at the golden masterpiece that Brok and Sindri had crafted. It was only half-done but my was it magnificent. He sprinkled in some fig and freiar leaves into the brew, knowing full well that they would tarnish the gold and make it rot. Perfect. And all that he’d have to do would be to give that other dwarf his tome.

.

The next morning arrived and it seemed that the competition had drawn up quite the healthy batch of spectators.

Loki smirked, feeling confident. He knew how this would go, Brok and Sindri would lose and he’d have to go and get that book for Aldric and whatever-his-brother’s-name-was. 

Aldric and co presented first. It was magnificent, a golden sceptre with a blue centrepiece from which one could peer and see the entirety of the earth.

“Very impressive, I doubt that anyone could beat that,” Loki smirked.

And then the brothers Brok and Sindri came out with their own sceptre. It was huge. It towered over the entire crowd. Twelve, twenty feet tall? Loki didn’t know, he couldn’t see that high. There were patterns carved into the stem, patterns depicting… something. There was a man, and then there was Gaea, and then there was someone killing that first man and then the one who killed that first man eating what appeared to be babies… weird. Up the length of it were gem stones that, if Loki had to guess, were collected from all around earth, though how the dwarves had found the time to accumulate such stones was beyond Loki. Loki snarled, he couldn’t see where the flaws he had implanted upon the device even were. 

But whatever the case, there was **_clearly_** only one winner of this competition. “Aldric Groson and your brother, you are the winners here.” Loki announced.

“What!?” Cried Brok, outraged.

“How on Midgard would Gaea ever be able to hold that one!?” Loki gestured wildly at the huge thing. She _prrobably_ could, but Loki was not about to get his head cut off, no thank you.

“I disagree,” an all too familiar voice chimed in. Loki cursed a bit before turning around. Why had he even bothered? Of _course_ Gaea would show up at the worst possible time.

“Ha! Well, since these sceptres were made for the Earth Goddess, I guess it’s _her_ opinion, not yours.” Brok taunted. By the crowd’s murmuring it would seem that they agreed with him. Sindri grinned maliciously, approaching Loki with an axe in hand.

“Wait a second!” Loki cried out, pausing what would have undoubtedly been a rather joyous affair on Nidavellir. “What part of me counts as my head?”

“What?” Brok huffed. “That is ludicrous.”

“Of course it is,” a random dwarf from the crowd, with a ginger beard that had bits of food sticking out of it, agreed. “Everybody knows that the head is from the ears up.”

“No, Laysmith, it’s the _chin_ up!” Another dwarf chastised.

“How far away from his neck?” Asked another.

“About an inch to the right?” Yet another chimed in.

Pretty soon the seemingly clear-cut situation had dissolved into utter and complete chaos. Loki smirked internally, knowing full well that he’d face harsh repercussions should his intention be outright on display for all to see and get cross with.

Eventually a voice rang clear though the crowd. Loki realised, with mounting horror, that he recognised that voice too. ’Twas Herestacles, the bloody gnome. “Halt! Loki is right, we can not simply cut off his head because we have no idea what defines the head in particular- however, we know his lips are a _part_ of his head, and since that is now yours.” And then that damned gnome pulled out a long, silver thread.

Loki heard a bunch of cheering and then all of a sudden there was weight on him, likely from many dwarves. Loki didn’t even bother trying to fight it, he knew that whatever he might attempt, Gaea would force him to desist.

.

Verity screamed at the sight of Loki. “What happened!?” She immediately helped him into her living room.

Loki could not speak as Verity berated him, Verity realised that those threads around his mouth were most likely the cause. How Loki hadn’t managed to just use his seidr to snap them off by now was beyond her. She grabbed a pair of scissors and tried to cut them, but Loki looked as though he wanted to scream as she tried to bring up enough thread to get the scissors around it by pressing his blood-crusted skin down. 

“Okay, okay.” She got up and brought back a knife. “You’re going to have to be very still, this could go horribly wrong. I’m going to try and make this as painless as possible.” Loki’s eyes widened at the sight of the thing. Was Verity truly going to bring that monstrous object up near his face?

“Here we go.” She sliced at the first thread very carefully. Once it gave way, she put the knife down and grabbed the piece of thread next to it, pulling the thread out slowly. She needn’t have bothered to try and be gentle. Blood had clotted around the threads, so of course it was going to hurt Loki anyways. Verity tried not to puke at the sight and smell, and instead resolved to closing her eyes as she pulled and pulled away at the seemingly endless chord that shut her friend’s mouth.

.

Once the threads were off, Verity took Loki to a doctor. The woman had grimaced and immediately sent in some trained nurses to patch Loki up. They disinfected his mouth area and wrapped a large bandage around his mouth-head area when the disinfecting caused the wounds to reopen a bit. 

“He should only take in liquids for at least a week, to avoid movement of the lips, or it will take longer to heal. It’s not going to kill him, or else we’d keep him here, but it will be painful. I’m writing you a prescription for pain medication, he should take one tablet after each meal, try to space them about 8 hours apart, okay? The bandage can come off around noon today.” The original doctor handed Verity the prescription.

“Thank you.”

“How did he get like this.”

“No clue, he just showed up at my doorstep like that.”

The doctor smiled. “You are a good friend.”

Damn straight.

.

They missed their pre-natal checkup… Verity was not about to admit how useful Loki’s seidr could be at times, especially because they had stolen someone else’s slot [Verity had forced Loki to reschedule that poor expectant mother’s slot, had told him she wouldn’t talk to him until he’d done so].

“Interesting… there appears to be two heartbeats, I believe that you will be having twins Ms. Nalson.”

“Twins?” He frowned. He’d never heard of Jotunn twins… that must mean that the children were both Thor’s. This was both a relief and a curse. Now Angrboda would never get to have a legacy. He felt awful, he’d failed the man he’d loved for so long.

“Yes… in a few months time we should know the genders. Is that something you want or are you two keeping it a secret?” The doctor glanced between Loki and Verity.

It took them both a moment to realise what the doctor was implying. They both blushed fiercely. “Uh, we’re not together, she’s just my friend.”

“Of course, of course, silly me. You know, my aunt had a _friend_ too, up north, there really is no sh-”

Loki swung his legs off of the side of the chair and Verity followed suit. This was _not_ a conversation they were going to be having.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm baaack *jazz hands* Sorry for the long wait, I just haven't been in the right mood to write in a while, there's so much going on in the world right now. It's funny, because I thought I'd be super into it once exams ended, but now I'm just in a state of perpetual dread waiting for results to come out, because there is a HUUUUUGEEE gap between my firm uni and my insurance. :P Enough about me, this story probably won't take longer than another ten chapters, and then we move onto 'Oh Joy' ;))))) 


	9. Chapter 9

It took two weeks for the skin around Loki’s lips to completely heal. It would have taken less time had he any Holy Ice from Jotunheimr or maybe even just some of his herbs to brew a healing potion.

Loki had disguised the wounds to keep Verity from doting on him. She had better things to do, he was sure.

.

Igrun broke up with him. Thor was devestated.

“Thor, I can’t do this anymore, you’re just too clingy,” she had said one morning, after a night spent together.

“What do you mean?”

“This,” she shook her hands in frustration. “This-this arrangement between us! It’s not healthy how often you are here! Thor, since we have started sleeping together, I have bedded no others but you.”

“But I’m in love with you. I know, marry me!” Thor got out of bed and kneeled in Igrun’s direction.

“You’re not in love with **_me_** , you’re in love with a **_facade_**!” Igrun ripped that necklace that she always wore off of her neck. It clattered to the ground and suddenly she was blonde and more buxom… and those eyes weren’t green, they were **_blue_**! And that skin- it was a fair tan, and her waist looked more delicate, and those hips were curved perfectly like a round hill… she was **_hideous_**!

“Wha-!?” Startled, Thor took a step back, nearly bumping into the door.

“I-I am sorry, a woman came and told me that if I wore this necklace then it would bring me good fortune, I had no idea that she meant you!”

Time stood still for Thor. On the one hand he was upset about this sudden and unexpected breakup… on the other hand, he was furious at having had been deceived. He snarled and slammed his fist against the shoddily-polished chest of drawers. “Who was this woman!?”

“I-I do not know! She wore a cloak the entire time, I never saw her face.”

A thought dawned on Thor. “So then, it could have been a man?”

“Well, uh, yes I suppose, but the voice was effeminate. I highly doubt-” the door slammed shut, “that she was a he… oh well, I suppose that that’s that.”

.

Jarnsaxa was a full five months pregnant, and Laufey was able to breathe a sigh of relief. Clearly his nephew hadn’t been good for nothing, because he had not miscarried, they were now in the safe zone.

Jarnsaxa wanted a lordship, but Laufey was reluctant to provide a large one. Laufey was many things, a monster was not one of them. Setting his nephew up with a lordship over, say, Bauxgardr would ensure his death once a rival found out a **_runt_** ruled over such a regal section of land.

“I will station you in Chutgardr.”

“Uncle, that is too far away, how will I raise the babe?”

“You can stay in the palace until then, or in Chutgardr if you wish, but you do realise that the larger your land the more likely it is that someone will kill you trying to seize it, someone like _Kari_.” Laufey warned.

“I will think on it, uncle. Thank you.”

“My pleasure,” Laufey rolled his eyes. This child was so touch-starved.

.

“Heimdallr!” Thor bellowed, climbing up the stairs to Heimdall’s podium. “Friend, I must ask you something!”

“Ask away, my prince.”

“Have you noticed a man with features like that of the frost giant Loptr lurking through Asgard's fine gilded halls?”

“No, my liege. If this is about that breakup with the prostitute though, you should probably know that Loptr can transform into a woman,” Heimdall quirked a brow.

“So you believe that it was him there then?”

“Potentially, yes. There are not many who can hide from my gaze. And of those who can, he is the only one whom I know that possesses the trickster spirit.” Ah, that blasted spirit.Thor pondered this. 

“Do you know where he is?” Thor asked, spinning Mjolnir in his right hand.

“Nay, my prince. I know that he made it to Nifleheim, where he convinced a stranger to break his cuffs, but after that he has been out of my sight.”

Thor nodded. “Thank you friend. I must take my leave.”

“Of course, my prince. Good luck, and be careful.”

Thor didn’t even stop to ask Heimdall how he knew what Thor was doing, he just turned back, smiled, nodded a ‘thank you’ and disappeared in the Bifrost’s glowing lights.

.

When the Earth Mother next visited Loki, he shooed her away. “I am pregnant, Earth Mother, please leave me be until after the children are born.”

“Children?” She knew full-well that Jotnar didn’t have twins. If such an event ever occurred then the dominant zygote would simply swallow its brother zygote. This must be a mixed breed, and therefore this must be Thor’s child.

“Yes, children.”

Gaia thought then, for a moment. “Fine. How long until they are due?”

“Two months.”

“Alright then, but be warned Laufeyson, I shall be back to task you once more once these children have been born.”

“Of course, Earth Mother.”

.

Baby shopping with Verity was possibly the most fun Loki had ever had. Loki hadn’t wanted to know the sexes of the babies because it was his first pregnancy, and also because he was a bit new to this whole mono-sex thing. Because of this, Verity had suggested that they check out a more unisex store.

Loki was in awe of the tiny baby boots. They were so tiny. So pointless, but so tiny. He held one in his hand and it dawned on him in that moment that he was about to be giving birth. Like, **_actually_** giving birth. To living creatures. Tiny, little, living creatures. He was so scared. It wasn’t like he was an official citizen of the earth or something. He was an outsider, banished from his own realm. Oh no, what would happen when the children wished to know of their heritage? He could take them to neither Jotunheimr nor Asgard. This was a disaster. He shouldn’t be doing this!

Verity, despite not having ‘mind reading’ as one of her list of powers, turned to him and put a hand on his shoulder. “Hey, it’s all going to be okay, don’t worry.”

Loki took a gulp and nodded. It was all going to be okay. It was all going to be okay.

The rest of the trip was spent feeling how soft baby blankets were and picking clothes three month sizes too big because it was honestly such a waste to buy clothes that often, when they grew so much in their early stages.

“You could always swaddle them,” Verity shrugged. “They’re going to be born around summer, so a blanket will probably be enough.”

“Exactly.”

“But we need baby caps. I remember reading somewhere that people lose most of the heat in their bodies through their head. And I’m pretty sure babies don’t have all that much heat to spare.”

Loki nodded. “This store doesn’t sell caps though.”

“We can try another one!”

And so they did. Then they got milkshakes and chilled out at a cute little cafe near a small lake. The day was sunny enough to prompt them to ask to be seated outside. For the first time in a long time, Loki felt happy. There was something about being with Verity that just made him **_happy_**. 

Loki didn’t need no stinking man, not when he had a best friend!

.

Loki knew that in **_human_** development, babies usually kicked inside of their mother’s wombs, but he’d never, **_ever_** heard of that happening in a Jotunn. So excuse him for freaking out the first time it happened.

“Loki!” A pillow hit him in the face as Verity grumbled out, “It’s three in the morning, **_again_**!”

“Verity! Verity! Quick, we must go to the hospital, I am dying!”

“What!?” That woke Verity up. She jumped out of her bed and flung on the lights, groping around madly for her keys. “What happened! Is the baby okay!?”

“I don’t know, I just felt a mad pushing on the inside of my stomach, like it was about to erupt from within!”

It took Verity a moment. But when she did stop, she was back to the natural tired state of a 26 year old woman at 3 in the morning. “Loki. That is the babied kicking.”

“What!? Babies don’t-” and then he remembered. These babies weren’t 100% Jotunn. Curse you, Thor.

“Can I feel your stomach?”

“Of course.”

The moment she laid a hand on it, Loki felt one more of those ungodly thumps. Verity smiled softly.

“Go back to sleep, Loki.”

“Okay.”

.

Loki had to go bra shopping. His chest had expanded to make room for the babies’ food. On Jotunheimr, a mother’s chest usually went fully back down if he wasn’t impregnated for ten years after his last delivery, it was a way of ensuring that too much energy wasn’t expended by the body in modifying it. Loki couldn’t **_wait_** to have his flat chest back. Boobs seriously sucked.

He looked around, feeling fat, ugly and sweaty. He’d opted to do this one without Verity, just because it was underwear.

He looked at the sexy black lacy ones. He had no use for them, none at all, so he picked up two of them as well as two one-pieces, before finally picking up three sports bras and five maternity bras. If his breast size changed, he’d just use his seidr to modify them a bit.

.

The day of delivery came a little sooner than expected, which was terrifying because Loki was giving birth on a foreign planet and it wasn’t planned and they were **_twins_** and they were premature! Urgh!

“Breathe, Loki, just breathe,” Verity soothed.

“I’m trying,” he gasped.

The lady on the phone had told them to wait four more hours, that Loki wasn’t dilated enough and that as it was his first pregnancy he would probably take longer anyways. Loki understood that in the _back_ of his mind, but in the front of his mind he really wanted to kill that fucking whore.

“Here, have a milkshake,” Verity tried. She highly doubted that the doctors would put Loki under GA, given that he was pregnant, so it was safe to feed him.

“Thank you.” Loki panted.

Verity whipped out her phone. “It says here that walking a bit might help.”

Loki nodded, thanked her, and accepted her help in standing up. It was hard. Having two children constantly dancing the ‘cha cha’ on one’s bladder tended to ruin their posture. These damned kids better be worth it.

“Verity, it hurts.”

“I know, sweetheart, I know.” Verity enveloped Loki in a hug. “There, there, don’t worry, a few more hours and this will all be over.”

.

Thor had spent the past five months travelling from realm to realm. He’d been to Nifleheim, Muspelheim, Svartalfheim, Vanaheim, Alfheim, and even Nidavellir! Nidavellir said that they had seen someone matching Loki’s appearance a few months ago, and that they had sewn his mouth shut. They also said something about an ‘Earth Mother’. Thor had never heard the term before, they had called her ‘Gaia’ which Thor had _also_ never heard before. Nevertheless, he was on Midgard now.

The dwarves had said that Gaia was powerful, and that she had a wicked streak. Loki had probably aligned himself with the woman with the intent of taking down Asgard. It was imperative that Thor thwart his plan.

Maybe he could ask his mother for help? His birth mother, Jord. She was the Goddess of the Earth, after all, she _must_ be able to locate Loki.

“Mother!” Thor called, no response. “ _Mother!_ ” Nothing.


	10. Chapter 10

The damned children had taken three days to get out of Loki. Two kids, one boy and one girl. Oh, and the girl was blue, so there was that.

Loki cradled his daughter. He hated that he couldn’t hold them both up at the same time. 7 kgs for the girl and 8 for the boy, they were both underweight.

_This is Angrboda’s daughter_ he kept thinking, looking down at her sleeping peacefully. _There is no other possibility, even her seidr feels like his. And_ ** _he_** _is Thor’s son_. Admittedly a bit odd that his and Angrboda’s child was mono-sexed, let alone **_female_** , but he supposed that neither of them were exactly 100% Jotunn after all.

Hel and Mödí were what he named his children. He had almost named Hel ‘Thrudd’, but one look at her and he had known it to be false. There was no way that she was anyone but Angrboda’s daughter.

In all honesty, Loki had no clue how something like this could have possibly happened. He had never heard of twins having different fathers. But Verity had looked it up and had verified it to be a real thing, at least among humans. Speaking of Verity, she was currently cradling Mödí in her arms.

Loki hadn’t thought about Angrboda in a **_while_**. He had stopped wearing the blue flower that was his now deceased boyfriend in his hair around the same time that he had begun Gaia’s bloody tasks, but he supposed that that didn’t matter anymore. Not when Angrboda could live on in their daughter.

And the same went for Mödí! Screw Thor, Loki hadn’t even wanted him to begin with, had merely wanted to sleep with him. He didn’t need **_him_** , not when he had Mödí.

The convenient thing about having fraternal twins was that Loki didn’t have to lament an absence of multicoloured clothing, it wasn’t like anyone was going to confuse these two babies, regardless of the fact that Hel possessed Loki’s shapeshifting abilities and loved to shape-shift into forms that closely resembled her brother.

The most heartbreaking part by far, to Loki, was that his brothers couldn’t meet the children. He was forbidden from going back to Jotunheimr, and while they could always visit him, how was he going to get word out to them?

This whole thing was a mess. But every time he looked at his two precious gems, he realised that he wouldn’t have it any other way.

.

Thor had had a run in with some intelligence security officer named ‘Nick’, which was how he met this man called Tony Stark and wound up joining this initiative called the Avengers. It was super cool, they fought aliens and stuff.

He met someone too, a girl named Jane. She was breathtaking, and smart, and funny, and witty, and she had a warrior’s spirit about her. Though she hit him a lot which was… oh well, she was just passionate, he supposed. And it wasn’t like Loki hadn’t done worse when he’d stabbed Thor through the heart.

.

Loki had suspected that it wouldn’t be long before Gaia contacted him next. What he **_hadn’t_** realised was that it would be on his original delivery date, the day he told her he couldn’t take requests until. Wow, she was patient! The babies were two months old, she’d have to have known that they’d been delivered.

“Three more tasks,” she smiled at him. “This one will lead you to Vanaheim. You will find a king there, Fandolir, he needs help. Offer him assistance.”

“Help? With wha- _urgh_ ,” Loki groaned. Blast that old hag to Hel and back!

.

Nebula strode into Stark Towers, sceptre in hand vision in mind. Today was the day that she made her father proud, **_finally_**. Today she would retrieve the tesseract, and decimate half of earth’s population in her father’s name.

.

Verity was terrified about the news, of course she was, but what could she do? She cuddled Hel and Mödí in her lap. Loki was away. He’d be back soon, he’d said, two days ago. She hoped that he would stick to her promise

Goodness, it sounded almost as though the pair were a married couple. She chuckled. What a mess they would be, thank goodness they were just friends! 

.

Loki had found the small Vanir Kingdom to the south, as most small kingdoms were.

Fandolir was an old man, in quite good shape Loki might add. He sported an impressive grey beard that went down to his hips. The type of beard a real man grew, Loki thought in mystified awe. He wanted to touch it so bad. Aside from that, there really wasn’t that much about Fandolit that was pleasant.

“King Fandolir,” Loki bowed. “The goddess Gaia told me that you required my assistance?”

“Required?” Fandolir humphed. “That’s one way of putting it. I need you to bring back a cart from my daughter up in the hills.”

“Is that all?” That sounded fairly simple and straightforwards. Oh, Gaia must be going easy on him because he’d just given birth.

“Yes, that will be all.”

.

Loki spent that night following the map to the king’s daughter. He eventually had to call it quits for the night. He sat down and started a fire using his seidr. That was when he heard some shuffling around him. 

“Who’s there?” His voice commanded authority, he’d been a prince for over a millenium, of course it would!

Slowly from the shadows, out shifted two little boys. Loki quirked a brow, reaching for his daggers. He’d practically invented the ‘use kids as bait’ trick, way back in the day.

“We’re sorry, mister, but our parents abandoned us in the woods a few days ago, and we’ve nothing to eat and nowhere to go. Please can we borrow your fire?” The oldest one, who couldn’t have been more than two or three decades old, asked.

Loki hesitated. He couldn’t sense a lie. Usually he was pretty good with spotting liars… these boys were legit. Maybe it was that he’d recently become a mother himself, but he couldn’t help but feel a blinding rage towards the boys’ idiot parents. May they rot in hell for just abandoning their children in the woods. Who even did that!?

“Alright,” he said finally, feeling like it was a trap and yet sensing no imminent danger.

“Thank you, mister. Come, Brandt.”

The other boy toddled over. He must’ve been fifteen at best. He should still be in **_preschool_!** Taking a deep breath, Loki closed his eyes and thought to his children: _I will never abandon you like this._ ** _Ever_** _._

The younger one was wearing two sets of coats, the older one must have volunteered his. Loki took off his coat. “Here, wear this.”

The older one looked at him somewhat suspiciously before accepting the offer. “Thank you, mister.”

“Loki, just call me Loki. What’s your name?”

“Gunnar.” He replied.

“Why did your parents abandon you?” Probably not for the same reason that Laufey would have abandoned him had he not been the ward meant to be kept to placate Odin. He doubted that the Vanir had runts.

“I don’t know. Mother was having one of her fits and she threatened father that she would kill herself if he did not take us out into the woods and be done with us.”

Loki blinked. “Mother? Like… step mother?”

“No, mother and father never separated. Our birth mother.” For a twenty year old he sure was in tune with his environments. Still, it made Loki uneasy. What kind of mother put her kids out alone in the wild?

_Angrboda’s mother_ ** _hated_** _him, don’t think for a moment that she would not have done the same had her father not been watching after the birth_. He shook his head. But these kids’ parents were **_married_** , so he was fairly certain that their conception would have been consensual. Not always, of course, there were spouses, men and women alike, who raped their spouses, Loki just doubted that their father had forced himself on his wife when he clearly card about her safety. Everybody knew that rape was about disrespect.

“Are you boys hungry?” Loki had some food in a space pocket. He brought forwards a large bag of chips (you couldn’t really store perishables in space). “I have more if you like them.”

“Thank you, mister, but it’s alright, we ate.”

“Ate what?”

“Berries.”

Loki wound up forcing the children onto the ground to check for any symptoms that they’d consumed poison. He washed his seidr over them, checked their necks, under their armpits, their legs, their bellies. Nothing. “You two should be careful. Some berries are poisonous, but you got lucky.”

“Wut’s poson?” Asked the younger one.

“It can kill you,” Loki explained, realising that the older one didn’t seem to know either. This was seriously concerning, their parents should be charged with attempted murder.

“Oh. So it’s like a knife?” Asked the older one, seemingly perplexed by this sudden revelation that not all food was edible.

“Sometimes it’s like a knife for your insides, other times you don’t feel it at all. It can be colourless, and you usually eat it: though there is carbon monoxide, though I’m not sure it q-” the boys had both fallen asleep. Seriously, no survival skills.

_He was going to take them back to Midgard with him. They needed_ **_actual_ ** _parents._

.

From where he was on the map, he reckoned it would take less than a day to find the princess.

The boys had agreed to follow him. “Mister Loki, please tell us a story?”

Loki was in a surly mood: tired, missing his kids, and sick of fucking Gaia. Usually, he was a good tale weaver, but today he couldn’t find even an iota of inspiration. “Alright then,” and he told them the only damned story he knew.

“Once upon a time there was a king, who wanted to lay his claim on all of the Nine Realms, he did so by having a child with each monarch, and declaring it a ward. His son would follow in his footsteps, and as would his son. The grandson of this original king is called Gore. When Gore got to Jotunheimr, the local ward was scared and ran away: he didn’t want to give birth yet. And he _definitely_ didn’t want the only child he would be allowed to birth, by law, to be the child of an absentee father. But he ran into the prince, and so lied about his identity. On the way back they found that the ward’s cousin had disguised himself as him and taken his place. Now, the ward had decided he wanted to leave for good, but…” oh shit, what could he say? He couldn’t use the phrase ‘wanted to tap that’ in front of children, could he!? “but he had fallen in love with Gore,” overstatement of the year.

“What did he do then?” Brandt asked.

“Well, he competed with his cousin for Gore’s affection, and the ward won. But then the ward’s ex-boyfriend came and messed everything up, and died in the process.” Loki had stopped crying over Angrboda. He had loved him dearly, he had. But if the Norns had wanted him dead, then they had wanted him dead, right? And besides, it’s not like his genetic line ended with him, not when Hel was alive and well. “Gore found out that the ward had been lying, and was very upset. His father, who was also the ward’s father, demanded that Laufey-King banish the ward, though Laufey-King would have happily done it anyways. The end. What did you think?”

“The ward’s cousin has issues,” Gunnar wrinkled his nose.

“Yes, sweetheart, yes he does.”


	11. Chapter 11

Nebula was defeated and sent to Kyln. Thor and the others went out for shawarma. Everything was going swell.

And then he received a text on his ‘cellphone’.

Jane had dumped him. He took a breath. He understood, of course, he had been neglectful, he had been away too long fighting Nebula. He resolved to see her, to ask for her forgiveness.

She wouldn’t take him back.

Honestly, Thor thought that it should have hurt more, but he just didn’t feel it. He was okay with it, he supposed.

Frigga walked into her son’s apartment. Her step-son’s apartment _technically_ , but Thor had been so young when he had been brought to Asgard, and she had been the fourth person he had connected with (after Sif, Heimdall and Baldr). She had been his confidant for many, many years before he had begun to trust Odin and even Tyr. How could she ever genuinely think of him as less than _her_ son, whether she felt it ethical or not that he’d been robbed his birth mother?

“Are you alright, Thor?” She asked softly.

“Mother,” she had clearly startled him. “I mean, _Frigga_ , to what do I owe this visit?”

“You have been away from Asgard for quite some time,” Frigga smiled softly.

“I-I am sorry, I shall be back on Asgard shortly to resume my princely-” she held up a hand to silence him.

“Your father and I are simply worried, but if Midgard is what you need, then don’t worry about it. Your father isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.”

.

Thor thought long and hard about his mother’s words, and four days after she had left for Asgard, he decided to go back home too. There was no point in avoiding it any longer. And besides, he had just bested a foe intent on destroying first Midgard then the rest of the Nine Realms, so he was certain that he’d be welcomed back as a hero.

And he was. But it wasn’t enough. It was never enough.

And so he picked up quest after quest after quest, never finding true fulfilment. It didn’t matter. He was a young adult, he was just going through that whole ‘finding-himself’ phase, he was certain.

.

Jarnsaxa had given birth to a baby boy, admittedly a little bit late. _Magni_ , he had named the child. He had the same blonde hair that both Jarnsaxa and Thor possessed, and skin a halfway shade between Jarnsaxa and Thor’s. He screamed ‘little half-thing’ but Jarnsaxa felt satisfied knowing full-well that nobody would ever **_dare_** call him out on it. Nobody had called _Loki_ out on it, after all. Well, not to his face anyways.

Magni was a cutie. Jarnsaxa kept him close, swaddled in multiple blankets because he wasn’t sure if his skin would protect him from the cold or not, given how it seemed half-Aesir (hadn’t Loki mentioned at one point that Thor was only 1/4 Às?)

Laufey had carved him out a piece of land nearby Utgardr. Finally, something to lord over his brother, a piece of land near the heart of Jotunheimr. Suck on that, _father_! And best of all, Loki wasn’t getting any land because he was a disgraced ex-prince who was **_banished_** by not only his mother, but his father to boot!

Things _seriously_ couldn’t get any better.

.

Helblindi needed closure. He was devoted to his father, sure, but he did love his mother. Maybe not with the same intensity as Byleistr, but nevertheless he was Farbauti’s first born. He couldn’t accept his father’s statement that they had ‘grown apart’ nor could he accept the ‘irreconcilable differences’ part.

Despite being king, their father still had to go through court proceedings. Thrym, Farbauti’s brother and Jarnsaxa’s brother, was called in as Farbauti’s witness. Thiazi, one of Farbauti’s old handmaids, was called in as Laufey’s witness. Helblindi was **_desperate_**.

He knew that Thrym would be in favour of whatever it was that Farbauti was arguing, he was far from impartial, and he knew that Thiazi was loyal to his king and wouldn’t spill a bean.

Which was why, eight hours before the trial, Helblindi snuck into the courtroom and **_hid_**. He put himself in the wings and his himself behind the seats, near to the back. He’d be able to hear everything, but he’d be unseen. He just needed to keep **_very_** quiet.

It wasn’t illegal for him to be in here, but he had no special desire to face either of his parents’ wrath.

The seven jotnar walked in (a lawyer for both Farbauti and Laufey, as well as the judge), Helblindi could tell from the steps.

“Alright,” the judge banged the gavel as soon as he was seated. “King Laufey, you may go first.”

“My client would like a divorce from his ex-wife effective immediately.” Laufey’s lawyer began. “We have evidence in the form of a witness that Queen Farbauti, while married to King Laufey, sexually molested his youngest son.” Helblindi froze. **_WHAT!?_** He prayed that nobody had heard his gasp, it had been short and almost soundless after all. “We have evidence to suggest that this lasted nearly a full millennium, from the time the boy was about two-hundred, up until his 1200th birthday, when we are all aware that there was a bit of a commotion about the state of the now exiled ex-prince Loptr’s virginity, and Queen Farbauti announced that it was secure.”

“Queen Farbauti, would your team like to add anything to the statement?”

“These allegations are unfounded!” Farbauti’s lawyer protested. “All you have is anecdotal evidence! In the files, it was reported that one was a statement that Queen Farbauti made about having his way with a few runts **_back in the day_** , which even if it weren’t a joke, which my client assures me that it was, does not make him a child molester!”

Helblindi was sweating. This wasn’t true, this couldn’t be true. Surely!

_But Laufey and Farbauti had been happily married, for a_ ** _very_** _long time, it couldn’t have been something small that ended the marriage._ But this didn’t make any sense- Laufey didn’t even **_like_** Loki! He had made it clear from the moment that he was born that Laufey held nothing but sheer disdain for the little runt!

_But then why did he bring Jarnsaxa into his home when Loki had no playmates? Why hadn’t he ordered Loki’s execution when he had been found out, after the Aesir left? He’d even let Loki leave with the body of a Jotunheimr citizen. He would have been within his right to put a bounty on him, or to hire someone to act as the face behind the ordering of the bounty. His father clearly had_ **_some_ ** _affection for Loki._

He felt chills run down his spine at Thiazi’s voice. “When Loptr was a child, Queen Farbauti would place him on his lap. At first I thought nothing of it, but one day as I was helping Queen Farbauti bathe Prince Loptr, I noticed him shifting his hands down and taking an inappropriate amount of time when washing his genitals. Again, I thought not much of it. Then, one day I walked past Queen Farbauti’s rooms and heard a bit of a commotion, I heard him begging Queen Farbauti to stop, I heard the words ‘please, no, it hurts’ and I peeked in from under the door. I witnessed Queen Farbauti with Prince Loptr sitting naked on his lap. Queen Farbauti was stroking Prince Loptr’s member in a sexual fashion. Prince Loptr was not sexually mature at that stage. I am not the only one who has seen such things, though Laufey King wished to limit the knowledge of this case. I was called in because I was present the day that Queen Farbauti checked Prince Loptr’s virginity. I witnessed him position Prince Loptr in a way that made it so that Prince Loptr’s legs were spread wider than necessary, and I witnessed him rub his clit and finger him with not the standard **_one_** finger, which would have been too much anyways as he is a runt, but three fingers. I watched him place his head between the young prince’s head to ‘examine’ the state of his hymen.”

“If these allegations _are_ true, then why wait until now to bring them up!?” Thrym countered. “Judge, surely you cannot believe these preposterous allegations that my brother’s ex-husband has brought up! Surely you find suspicion in the timing of such events? Clearly, King Laufey has had an affair with another Jotunn, and is making up false allegations against my brother to avoid paying alimony!”

“Then why do you think your brother agreed to have our children absent?” Laufey sneered.

“I did not want them to hear these lies put forth against their mother!” Farbauti hissed. Helblindi didn’t believe him. _Why didn’t Helblindi believe him!?_

The judge thought for a moment. “I think that I have heard enough for today. Court is adjourned. I shall hear more witness testimony tomorrow, and I shall make my decision the day after.”

Laufey was the last to leave the courtroom. “Son. I will have words with you later.”

“Alright, father.”


	12. Chapter 12

Helblindi felt sick to his stomach, but agreed to face his father anyways.

“Was it true?” Were the first words that flew out of his mouth as soon as Laufey entered Helblindi’s rooms. “Was it true, then? Father, tell me?” His silence was all the confirmation that he needed.

“Don’t tell your brother,” Laufey pleaded. “I didn’t want you to start thinking of your mother this way.”

“And how did you know then, huh? How did you know what mother had done?”

“Something about his claim of sleeping with runts didn’t sit well with me, it made me uneasy, it made me wonder…” Laufey confessed. “I didn’t think _much_ of it, but then I saw the way he looked at Loptr when he was revealed, and I knew for sure.”

“But why do anything about it then? You don’t even like Loptr!”

“I will not be married to a child molester.” So that was it then? No ‘he’s my son’? What kind of fucking bullshit was this!?

“I won’t tell By.” Helblindi shook his head. “But when he finds out, and he will eventually, he’ll wind up hating both of you. He already hates you for all of this.”

.

Loki knocked on Princess Ariadne’s door.

“Who is there?” A voice called out.

“Loki! I have been sent by your father to retrieve a cart from you!”

“Tell that old codger to bog off!”

Loki sighed and broke down the door with his seidr, he really did not have time for this. “Listen lady, I need you to fucking cooperate and bloody give me that crate before I do something we’ll both regret!” He snapped.

Ariadne was 5”6, she had auburn hair that went down to her breasts and wore a paisley dress. Not exactly princess attire. Loki grimaced. Even in his worst days he was not dressed so catalogue-y.

“Fine! You want the damned crate, take it!” She flung a huge box at him. Oh, it seemed that she had seidr too. But it was clearly inferior. Loki stepped out of the way and examined the heavy thing. It was a funeral crate. The kind that the Vanir used in their weird traditions, usually when there was no body to bury.

“Someone die?” He asked wryly, though he honestly just wanted this conversation to end and for him to leave this dump.

“My son,” she sniffed. 

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine, we weren’t close, I haven’t seen him since-”

“Since you sent him off to the Vanir High Witches for training,” all the pieces suddenly clicked together in Loki’s head. “You’re Angrboda’s mother.”

She reeled back as though she had touched something scalding. “Who are you, wench, to talk to me as though we are equals?! Get out of my hut!”

“You’re a disgraced ex-princess, I’m a disgraced ex-prince,” Loki said, wryly, extending a hand. “Loptr Laufeyjarson, since I’ve never really used Odin’s name. I knew Angrboda, we dated for a while.” At her raised brow he continued. “Actually, a really long while. We were on-again-off-again for centuries before he passed.”

“He didn’t pass, he was killed,” she sniffed.

“Why do you care, though? You never loved him.” 

“ _HE WAS MY SON!_ ” Ariadne screamed. “ _OF COURSE I LOVED HIM, HOW DARE YOU YOU FILTHY JOTUNN!?_ ” Loki dodged a vase and a chair hurled at him by her seidr.

“Well excuse me, but a mother _forced to take care of her own son_ on fear of being disowned is no mother to me! Do you know how many nights we’d spend and he’d be talking about all of the awful, **_awful_** things that you would do to him?! I know about you leaving him during midwinter for an entire week on his own when he was just a boy, I know that that was how he discovered his seidr! I know about you constantly leaving him out in the forest at night the day after your father would visit to check up on him! I know that when he first showed you his seidr you rushed him to your father and demanded he be trained by the Witches to get rid of him! I know you’ve made no move to contact him ever since!”

Her voice was steely. “Do you know how hard it is to be the parent of a product of rape? I knew I couldn’t take care of him, I knew I wouldn’t want to, which was why I tried to have an abortion. It was the right thing to do. My father forced me not to, but didn’t show much compassion for the child once it was **_born_**. I had to struggle through looking at him everyday, remembering the giant that **_raped me_**!” Her fists were clenched so hard that blood was starting to drip down them in the same fashion that the tears ran down her cheeks- curved and at random. “So until you are forced to carry a child you do. Not. Want. Don’t come in here and lecture me about parenting. Where was his father in all of this, huh? **_Absent_**! Where was the support and concern for me and my wellbeing? **_Absent!_** So kindly take this funeral box and **_fuck off_**!”

Loki didn’t even realise that he’d been pushed out of the door, with it slammed behind him.

_Forced to carry a child you didn’t want… absentee father…_

.

Loki loaded the box onto the cart outside and began to pull it. “Gunnar, Brandt, let’s… Gunnar? Brandt? _Hello_!?” The kids were gone. Frantically, Loki used his seidr to look for them, but hey were gone-gone. Heart in his throat, he walked down the hill.

Around sunset was when he started to realise that the box was getting heavier. Armed with a frown on his face, Loki hopped up onto the cart to look inside of it. Odd. It was just as empty as when he’d loaded it onto the cart.

Sighing and wiping the sweat off of his face, Loki continued to pull.

Truth be told, he didn’t feel any special swarm of emotions upon receiving the crate. Why would he? He’d already held a funeral for Angrboda. But that didn’t mean that its presence didn’t _trouble_ him, or maybe that had been the disappearance of those children. Whatever it was, Loki felt uneasy.

The next morning, as he continued to try to pull the cart down, it stopped. It would not move, or maybe it could and he just wasn’t strong enough to pull it. Grunting, he went up behind it and started pushing, which in all honesty he should have tried a long time ago. It didn’t budge. He then tried to move the crate down, but **_it_** wouldn’t budge. He examined it with his seidr but found nothing on it, which was impossible, because of **_course_** something must be on it!

He spent the rest of the day trying to budge that abominable cart so that he could bring it down the hill to that ungrateful king who **_happened_** to be the great-grandfather of his firstborn (yes, Hel had been born a full hour before Mödí).

Eventually he decided to call it in for the day. When he woke up the next morning, the cart was gone. Bolting upright, he immediately begun to search for the cart, before noticing it a few metres away, rolling gently towards the kingdom. Intrigued, Loki made after it. 

Transforming into a bird (Norns he had missed having control over his own body), he swooped down to examine what was going on. Ants. Ants were pushing the cart. Transforming back, Loki followed the procession, certain that it would lead to trouble. But it didn’t, it didn’t lead to trouble. 

Only as they passed through the village centre, did Loki realise what was going on. “Come back here!” A familiar voice called. At first Loki thought that this was directed at him, but then he noticed that the cart had stopped. Looking down, he watched as thousands upon thousands of ants started moving away from the cart and towards… Gunnar. Gunnar smiled at Loki. “Thank you, mister Laufeyjarson, for the other night. I hope that you find your peace upon the completion of the rest of your quest.”

“But ho-?” And then Gunnar was gone, and all that was left was Loki and one big cart that could mysteriously move again (he must be out of range of Ariadne’s magic). Shrugging it off and deciding that what exactly had transpired was a question best asked **_after_** he had been reunited with his children, Loki wheeled the cart into the throne room.

“Your Highness,” he announced. “The crate of your deceased grandson.”

A pause. “She told you, did she? She always had a habit of talking too much.”

“I knew him.” Loki confessed. He did not add the ‘I gave birth to his daughter’ part, because he honestly did not want whatever crazy custody battles this man would bring forth. He seemed a bit psychotic. Loki knew that Angrboda had been grateful to his grandfather for his life, but Loki had never managed to muster that same affection for the man whenever Angrboda made a comment about him. Loki merely shook his head and let Gaia transport him back to Midgard.

.

“That was a good one,” Baldr chuckled. 

“Don’t get too happy, the moment that Jord realises that we were meddling, we will be in big trouble with her,” Frigga warned.

“When do you think Thor’s going to get his head out of his arse? _Ow_!”

“Don’t swear in front of me, Baldr Odinson.” Frigga warned, finger wagging in Baldr’s face. “And I do not know when your brother will realise… but I trust that you will be supportive of him until that time.”

“Of course mother, you know that you can always count on me.”

“Of course. Now go visit your brother, I have a feeling he needs some man-on-man time.”


	13. Chapter 13

Baldr took Thor out **_drinking_**! They didn’t bring Tyr, as Baldr had conveniently picked a day to go out that was when Tyr was on vacation with Tyrd and his wife in Vanaheim.

“So, brother, how’s it been?” Baldr smiled brightly at Thor. It had been an effort on his mother’s, as well as several unfortunate servants’, part to get Thor ready for the night, then Baldr had strode in conveniently and offered to take Thor drinking.

“Alright, what about you and Karnilla? Has father accepted your marriage yet?”

“No.”

“That’s such **_bull_**!” Thor groaned, half-drunk (they’d been there ten minutes, and Thor had already downed an entire three kegs. His brother was amazing sometimes). “You did your duty taking me through the Nine. We should petition it together!”

Baldr smiled sadly, knowing full well that that would never change their father’s mind. His brother was such an optimist, even more so when drunk, that sometimes it seemed cruel to remind him that they lived in the _real world_.

“What about your love life, since you’re so keen for information on mine?” Baldr teased.

Thor went silent for a while, his face stony. “Do you remember Loptr, the real one, I mean, Loki?”

“Yes,” Baldr tried hard to contain his excitement.

“I think he is trying to sabotage me, I also think that he is working with a powerful entity from earth, trying to claim the Nine for himself,” Thor shook his head.

“These are bold assumptions, brother, what has led you to believe them?”

“Igrun dumped me,” Thor confessed. “Turns out she was under a glamour the entire time. It was a powerful glamour concealed by a necklace and gifted to her by a stranger at a pub who kept their cloak on the entire time.”

“It could have been Amora?” Baldr offered.

“Amora would not try to entice me to sleep with another, she’d try to entice me to sleep with herself.”

“As would Loki."

“Why? Why would he want me in bed with him? He has made it plenty clear that he cares not for me. No, I completely believe that he would have done this as a way to distract me as he gained power and planned his attack on Asgard.” Mmm, Baldr had gotten weird vibes off of Loki back on Jotunheimr, but he hadn’t gotten any **_dangerous_** ones. Still, never one to take a potential threat to Asgard lightly, Baldr listened as his brother spoke. “When I heard that, I went looking all over the Nine for him, and when I got to Nidavellir, I found out that he was working with some goddess of Midgard called ‘Gaia’ who is apparently **_very powerful_** , they called her a ‘primordial’, whatever that means,” Baldr’s face turned grey. Thor **_was_** right… but Loki hadn’t looked threatening the last time that he had seen him, and surely if he were planning to conquer the Nine he would have taken ‘Gunnar’ and ‘Brandt’ as servants to his cause… Baldr, of course, refrained from telling Thor that.

“I have seen him, brother,” Baldr confessed, wanting to gauge Thor’s reaction. “I do not think it is as you think it is.”

“What? When?”

“Two nights ago, while I was on Vanaheim. Perhaps Loki owed that goddess a favour, or became her servant for safe refuge on earth?”

“Perhaps,” though Thor doubted it. There was a moment of silence, then, “How did he look?”

“A little heavier than the last time we saw him,” Baldr chuckled. “I guess the cold on Jotunheimr had been burning a lot of his brown fat… either that or he just got well acquainted with all the junk food on earth.”

“Fair…” Thor said nothing more. When Baldr realised that Thor would not speak, that perhaps he was a little too out of it, he waved over the bartender and asked for the bill.

.

Loki’s biggest fear about leaving had been that the kids wouldn’t latch after being on formula for three days. Thankfully, that fear was unfounded, and they were both feeding like normal.

“Thank you so much Verity,” Loki hugged his friend.

“Anytime,” she smiled back. She didn’t have much of a social life, the time spent with the one person who wasn’t creeped out by her as well as the kids she thought of as family, was probably the best time she’d ever had.

“I owe you for this, I really do. What do you say to dinner out tomorrow, on me?” Loki asked.

“I’d really like that,” Verity smiled back at him. “Oh, and Loki.”

“Yes?”

“Thor was on Midgard.”

“What?” Loki’s face turned ashen. “When? Did he come here?”

“No, but there was this alien who tried to take over, and Thor was one of the people who stopped her. He’s part of this group called the Avengers.”

“The Avengers? Who are they?”

“A group that fights extra-terrestrials, I guess? I don’t really know all that much other than that they’re based in New York.”

“Well then, it’s a good thing that we’re based **_here_** ,” Loki huffed. “Of **_course_** Thor was here fighting battles on behalf of earth, Asgard sticks its nose in **_everything_**!”

Verity watched her friend. She knew better than to say anything about Thor. Of course she knew that Loki had only agreed to Gaia’s proposal with the hopes of getting back together with Thor, but that had been before he’d known that he was pregnant, and ever since the kids were born it hadn’t really seemed like he wanted to get back with the man-

“I miss him. I miss his hugs, I miss his smile, I miss his muscles,” Loki sobbed into her shoulder suddenly. Verity held him. “I keep trying to convince myself that I’m over him, that I’m over all of this, but I just really, really want him back! It’s all my fault that he’s upset, I haven’t _truly_ had a happy moment since we parted, not even when the kids were born!” Verity felt her sweater begin to dampen.

“There, there, Loki, don’t worry… I’m sure that wherever he is in the Nine, he misses you just as much.” She pressed a kiss to his cheek.

.

Thor had woken up with a hangover. He knew what he needed to do. First: he had to inform his father about Loki and his dealings, then he had to go and find Loki and kill him, **_then_** he had to get back together with Jane because she was clearly the best thing that had ever happened to him.

As soon as Thor informed Frigga of his plan, she slammed the door to her rooms shut and grabbed both of his hands.

“Thor, stop this madness!”

“What? _What madness, mother_!?” Thor growled, practically feral. And this was why, for the first time in forever, Frigga did not remind him to call him ‘Frigga’ because he had a real mother out there who did not deserve to have her child stolen. “How can you not see that he’s pulling the same stunts that he pulled last year, but that this time they’re directed at us! Allying himself with Gaia, **_distracting me-_** ”

“He is not the one who set you up with Igrunn, I did!” Frigga shouted, unwilling to let this madness continue. “And who cares about this **_Gaia_** , huh? From what I’ve heard it didn’t sound like they were allies at all!”

Thor had said nothing. “How could you?” Was how he chose to break his silence. “Why? Why set me up with her?”

“You were in a rut-”

“Oh, so you **_pitied me,”_** Thor spat out in that high voice he went into when he was upset. “You thought that I was useless and that I needed a whore to make me feel better.”

“Son, that was not-”

“ ** _You lie_**!” Frigga heard a crash of thunder outside, followed by a heavy patter of rain. She could have unlocked the doors, and probably would have had she been a lesser woman, but she was a mother, and mothers always did what was best for their children. 

“Thor, sweetheart,” she said calmly. “I didn’t drop you into bed with that girl, I gave her a necklace that would make her assume a form akin to Loki’s Aesir-female one.”

“Loki? Why him?” Thor frowned. Frigga just held his stare. He knew, she knew, he knew _exactly_ why she’d done it. He didn’t want to admit it, but he knew **_exactly_** why. “Never mind, this is stupid, forget this conversation ever happened. I won’t go after him.”

“No.” Frigga said, firmly. “You _should_ go after him! But not because you think he is a monster, Thor, because you _love him_!”

“I don’t love him. How could I ever love a monster like him? He is selfish and only thinks of himself, and even for a selfish person he is conceited,” Thor made a show of running his hands through his hair, “Ooh, look at me, I’m Loki, I have pretty hair!” Thor spat. “Mother, think no more of this, let this gnat not bother your mind any more than he has mine.”

Frigga bit her lip, still unwilling to let the doors open. No. This ended today, it had to. “I called your aunt here, Freyja.” Ah, right, Odin’s half-sister who Odin slept with because of bloody Bor. “A while back, we were concerned about you. She confirmed my suspicions- the Norns did too! What, do you think that freak months-long snow storms occur every day on Jotunheimr!” They probably did, but she needed this in her argument. “Son, it was fate. He was going to run away, he was more than powerful enough to do so undetected, and yet despite all odds the pair of you met!” Frigga said, exasperated. “Can’t you see? The Norns want this! This was _fate_ , Thor.”

“If anything this was the Norns teaching me a valuable lesson about duty, Frigga. A bit of self-reflection. Imagine if I were anything like him, the Nine Realms would be in chaos!” Thor huffed.

“Oh Thor, don’t act so saintly! Do not forget that time that a visiting king from outside of our territories brought over his son over for peace talks, and you challenged him to a duel to the death!”

“He insulted Sif, what would you have had me do?”

“Don’t you see what I mean? You can be rash and impulsive too!” _I blame their father_.

“I did it for someone else!”

“So did he! Did you ever stop to wonder, Thor, what it must be like for the children whom you have sired? Raised alone, not allowed to have siblings unless their other parent was the monarch of that realm, either shunned by their societies for being a symbol of Aesir dominance _or_ put up on a pedestal that they don’t want for something that they couldn’t control, worse: growing up fatherless.” She stepped forwards and stroked a hand through Thor’s hair. “Son, don’t you remember what it was like for you? Before this, before Asgard, before you were snatched from your birth mother?”

“No, not really. I just remember being happy, and then being brought here, where I was unhappy, and then learning to be happy again.”

“Can you imagine what it must be like… to carry a child that you didn’t want?”

Somehow, someway, a thought popped into Thor’s mind. Hadn’t Loki mentioned Angrboda being born under such conditions? He shook it off. Angrboda was a child of rape, what he was doing with the people who birthed his wards was totally consensual… except when it wasn’t, because if he _had_ gotten to Utgardr, say, a day early, he wouldn’t have been greeted by a willing participant… and here he was, acting as though that participant ought to have been willing. Loki had a responsibility, sure… but he wasn’t really obligated to it, was he? Unless you signed a contract with someone, or reached some sort of verbal agreement with them, you weren’t really **_obligated_** to do anything for them, you didn’t owe them anything… Loki, and the rest of the people he had bred, hadn’t all necessarily chosen their destinies, they’d just been handed them, no verbal agreement reached whatsoever, and assumedly no physical contracts signed either. Sure, it was right of them to want to keep the peace in their realms, but it wasn’t really anybody’s right to force them to do it. 

If Asgard were to keep this system at all, it really ought to be on a more choice-based system: if your kingdom would like our protection and leadership, then we would be happy to have a child with a member of your royal family as a permanent seal, however if you don’t want that, they don’t have to have a child with us **_and_** we won’t attack you out of spite or something silly like that. Thor shook his head. An expression must have crossed his face at some point, because Frigga was grinning ear to ear. She used her seidr to open her doors.

“Good luck son, and bring Loki back home not because he is a criminal or a thief, in your mind, but because you love him.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Jazz hands* Almost done! XD


	14. Chapter 14

The second day of court proceedings, Laufey had flat-out banned Helblindi from the courtroom, taking extra care to ensure that his son hadn’t snuck into the room once more. He needn’t have bothered, Helblindi was stuffed up in his room brooding.

There was nothing to gain from telling Byleistr, he reasoned. It would be cruel. Byleistr loved their mother, and clearly this was a past, unrepeated offence that was in no way consequential to their lives, or Laufey would have done more than merely ask for a divorce.

“What am I going to do?” He asked rhetorically. He wished Loki were here, Loki would know exactly what to do. Instead all he had was Jarnsaxa… he wondered if Jarnsaxa was worth asking. No, it would be a bad idea to involve anyone else until he knew what he was going to do with the information he had.

He heard a knock on his door. “It’s open.”

“Brother,” Byleistr greeted as he walked in.

“By, I thought that you were at mother’s in Vanaheim.”

“I was, but I just came back. No real sense in being there when he’s not.”

“Fair.”

“I saw ‘Saxa and Magni on my way in, he looks stressed.”

“Thrym’s here.”

“Thrym? Why?”

“Father wants this whole thing as private as possible, he and mother each have one lawyer and one witness,” he didn’t mention what was going at the moment that they were speaking, how there was more than one witness. He’d already made the decision not to tell Byleistr about what their mother had done. If father had made the decision that they didn’t need to know, then surely Byleistr didn’t need to know.

.

The wind blew Thor’s cape and hair back. He would never admit this aloud, but he felt majestic, and he loved it. His mother had sent him to Vanaheim, had told him that with Loki’s magical shroud around him, the only people in the Nine that would be able to find him were the Norns. He’d wanted to consult Karnilla, but she had insisted that constructing a pool would take too long, and that Thor going to Vanaheim was truly the more sensible option. 

He took the stairs that led to the Norns’ cave three at a time. He didn’t want to fly up let he offend the three maidens.

“Prince of Thunder,” he heard a voice call out to him. He turned to see a woman with blue hair.

“I need to find someone.”

“Say no more,” the young lady smiled at him with those ancient, dull, brown eyes of hers. “Of course we’ll help you find Loki.”

.

Loki sat on his couch turning the pendant Odin had gifted him with on his 100th. Not in-person, of course. _He vaguely remembered Thor falsely describing it as a ring… or maybe some of their siblings_ ** _had_** _received rings, and he was the odd one out. Hmmm…_

Thoughts ran through his head as he toyed with it. _‘Forced to carry a child you didn’t want’_ and _‘absentee father’_ were the most common ones. He supposed that he had a lot in common with Angrboda’s mother… or at least he’d almost had. If anything, what she had in common with him was with his _destiny_ , the one he had rewritten. He chuckled darkly. She had been made to carry a child of a different race, and he would have been too. Well, he did eventually, but that part was consensual at the time, as opposed to how it would have been.

If he were more honest, and a bit more generous, he suppose that he might have compared the woman to Laufey himself. Laufey who, legend (castle rumour) had it, had been strapped down by Farbauti and forcibly impregnated by Odin. Laufey who hadn’t wanted the child forced on him by an absentee father, but who would have lost all of his social standing (and who definitely would have been responsible for the war that would have started) had he aborted Loki or killed him or sent him off for no reason… he supposed that he and Angrboda had more in common than he’d previously thought. They’d both been raised by cold, callous, unloving mothers, and they’d both had absentee fathers (in addition to the obvious stuff like seidr and being Jotunn, of course).

He missed him, he did. Not as much as he missed Thor, he would never truly admit, but he did miss him. In his sane moments, he was a reliable confidante, and a close companion (not to mention that as a fellow seidrmadr he was pretty _freaky_ in bed, which was a huge plus).

One side of the pendant was Asgard, the other was a book with wisps around it. Wow, what a way for his father to have declared that he knew that Loki _read_ , so impressive! He could only guess that the wisps were supposed to be symbolic of his seidr. He rolled his eyes. Sure, Loki had been the smartest person in all of Jotunheimr before his banishment, but he was known for better things than his reading. He was known for his wit and his quick tongue, for one, he was known for his gift of persuasion, he was known for being short (he smiled wryly remembering this), and he was known for being a giant pain in the ass to his father.

Gaia took the opportunity to pop in. “Ready for your second-last task?” She said, all-too cheerfully.

“Yes.” He needed to get back to Thor. Who was he kidding? He wasn’t happier without Thor, he was just more obsessed with trying to prove it.

“Great,” she zapped them out. “I need you to retrieve something for me from Helheimr. The only way in is to go to Niflheim and find a dead soul in the wastelands to guide you.”

“What do you need?”

“A box, Queen Hela will give it to you.” Queen Hela, the Goddess of Death, Angrboda had mentioned her once (as a practitioner of dark seidr, the man had, at times, dabbled with sacrifices and light necromancy- he’d threatened Loki once that if he left him he’d kill him and just bring him back). “Good luck,” she smirked at Loki before sending him tumbling into the Nifleheim wastelands.

Loki looked around. He couldn’t really see much in front of him. The whole area was grey and covered in billowy smoke. He started to move around, using his seidr as a light source to guide him through it all. “Hello!” He called out. “Hello?”

No answer. It then occurred to him that the spirits of the dead might not speak to strangers. It was then when he saw something. It was grey too, like everything else in this Nornsforsaken place, but it was a light, glowy-grey. It was moving, slowly, a little bit off from him. Loki walked towards it, figuring that it probably wasn’t all that safe to run in a place like this.

“Hello!” He greeted the shape, moving closest to it. 

The large thing blinked at him. When Loki stared it down he could only see a light-grey mass, but from side-angles it was completely humanoid. “Hello. Who are you?”

“My name is Loki, are you dead?”

“Dead? I think I’m dead. I don’t really know, I was in a car and everything went dark,” the spirit shook its head. 

“Oh, alright. Mind if I take a walk with you?”

“Alright.”

Loki followed the spirit, and sure enough he found the entrance to Helheimr. It was about as dark and spooky as one would expect the entrance to Helheimr to be. Loki looked around at the approaching redness of the sub-realm, so this was where those who could not make it into Valhalla went. This was where he would one day go. The entrance was like the mouth of a cave, hiding from the periphery whatever horrors the mind could conjure. He stepped into it.

It… it wasn’t that bad. Aside from the lighting and the heat and the dizziness, but then, he supposed, he wasn’t really supposed to be here, now was he? He glanced at his spirit companion. She seemed alright. He supposed that souls felt a bit colder than Jotnar did, perhaps that was why she appreciate the warmth that he clearly couldn’t.

Loki spied the palace and immediately began to make his way towards it. 

.

The third day of divorce proceedings was long behind them, and yet still Byleistr chose to sulk. “I just don’t understand why mother has been banished? Surely you will lift this banishment when you become king, right brother?”

“Mhm,” Helblindi didn’t feel well, and a part of him was starting to suspect that it was because of this case. It wasn’t easy knowing that your mother had molested your brother. That he’d probably done so to other Jotnar. He thought of the words he had heard Thrym speak to Farbauti ‘ _it was just a runt, I don’t know what he’s so upset about!’_ So it might not even just be Farbauti. His entire mother’s line, half of what made him a Jotunn, was filled with bigots who thought that it was alright to _molest a_ ** _child_**. It was disgusting. He felt like peeling off his skin.

Byleistr, lost in his own thoughts, went on. “You should do it now, you know, fight Laufey for his throne.”

“And why would I do that, brother?”

“Why, for mother of course, this whole situation is unfair!”

“No, it’s not.” Helblindi finally said.

“And why the fuck not!?” Byleistr reeled back, completely offended at the notion that this was anything but a way to harm Farbauti, to isolate him from those that he loved.

“Because he is a child molester!”

Byleistr froze, completely taken aback by this accusation. But it was not him who spoke.

“Whatever Loki told you is lies!” When had Jarnsaxa arrived? Helblindi cursed at how silent that weasel was.

“Loki has told us nothing. What has he told you?” Helblindi turned to Jarnsaxa with a frown.

“That Uncle Farbauti molested him.”

“When was this?” Bylesitr asked, looking very much like a man who needed a chair.

“While Thor was here, but it was in the heat of the moment, and it sounded like a lie,” Jarnsaxa shook his head. “Honestly, don’t trust him, he’s not known as the Liesmith for nothing.”

“Well mother **_did_** molest him, and father had a bunch of servants from the castle testify that they’ve witnessed it!” 

Jarnsaxa stood stock-still. He’d wanted to believe that his uncle could never do such a thing. Loki was a notorious liar, after all. But Helblindi was convinced. Jarnsaxa felt a bit of guilt creep in. He had accused Loki of being a liar that night, he was fairly sure. He should apologise to his cousin, but how? He didn’t know where he was or if he’d ever even see him again. Jarnsaxa shook it off. How could he have known for a fact that Loki’s words had been honest that day? He couldn’t blame himself for this. He doubted his cousin would.

Jarnsaxa left the room, going back to his recent hobby of avoiding his father.

.

The palace was built of obsidian, Loki noted. Tall, shiny, black walls that reflected the heat of this realm right back onto him. He tugged at the collar of his shirt. It was so hot, he was sure that if he didn’t leave soon he would faint.

“Hello?” He called out, his face twisting uncomfortably from his unease at the heat. No answer, he continued to walk forwards. There were doors up ahead. Big ones, that usually indicated a throne room. It was odd, the lack of attendants in this castle, but Loki simply brushed it aside. Hela was Queen of the Dead, there was a good chance that spirits were her housekeepers, she was supposed to be the only living being in this realm, after all.

He knocked on the tall doors.

“ ** _Enter_**!” Called an imperial voice. She sounded self-sure, confidant. Loki quickly calculated an escape plan before opening the door.

There, on top of a throne of black and green and white rocks that Loki had no hope of identifying, sat Queen Hela, in all of her glory. Beside her was a dog that justified the fifteen-metre tall room.

“What do you want?” She asked, looking down on him. Oh, Hela knew who this was alright, she knew **_everything_** that went down in the Nine Realms. She knew that this was her half-brother, the now disgraced Prince Loptr, who preferred the name Loki for some reason or the other. She knew that her idiot other-half-brother, the heir of what should have been hers, was upstairs in the realm of the living, pining for him. She knew that the best way to hurt Thor would be to kill Loki where he stood for wandering into the land of the dead.

But she knew that there was more to gain by letting him live.

“I have come to retrieve something for the Earth Mother.”

“The _Earth Mother_ ,” Hela smirked, amused. So formal- or had the old bat not told him? Had Jord gone out of her way to hide her identity? The thought sent tingles down Hela’s spine. “I assume you are talking about this?” Hela brought out a black box. Just looking at it sent shivers down Loki’s spine. “I will give this to you… in time, but first, have a walk with me, brother.”

“Brother?”

“I am Hela, Odin’s firstborn,” Hela declared, sliding off of her throne. “And you are Loki Laufeyjarson, his eleventh, older than Baldr only.”

“If you were his firstborn, then why did he declare Thor heir and not you?” Loki asked sceptically. She grinned at him with her dagger-like teeth.

“He thought I was too violent- he was right,” she laughed. “This is Fenris, by the way,” she gestured, finally addressing the huge dog in the room. “Come, brother. There is much we have to chat about.”


	15. Chapter 15

Hela told Loki her tale as they wandered through the corridors in Hel. “I’m Odin’s firstborn- he had me with Frigga, I’m legitimate and everything. They had me early on in their marriage, neither of them were ready to really parent, I suppose. From a young age I’ve known what I was the Goddess of, you typically do. Anyways, so he put me here after I suggested conquering the Nine.”

“Doesn’t Asgard already rule the Nine?”

“Yes, but only through treaties and wards, I wanted to **_conquer_** it, expand the living space of our people, if you understand me.” She shook her head. “I’m glad it’s not mine now, of course. If I had remained heir, I would have had to **_birth_** each ward.” She grimaced. “Not worth it. And at least here I remain undisturbed, with an ever-growing realm.” Loki nodded. “Anyways, enough about me. What about you? I’ve heard about what went down on Jotunheimr with you and Thor.”

“Uh…” in the politest possible way: Loki didn’t trust this woman. He couldn’t understand why, he just didn’t. There was no lies in her words, he could tell… but he felt like there was deception. He had to be tactical. “I didn’t want to give birth to one of Odin’s wards.” He watched carefully as she smiled. Good. “So I thought I’d leave. Since I wasn’t heir, it wasn’t like I’d really be allowed to have any other children- I’d certainly not be allowed to **_birth_** them. Anyways, I ran into Thor and we had a fight,” he waved his hands, unsure of what else to say.

“Ah,” she knew that there was more, he could tell. How? It didn’t seem like gods came down here to gossip.

It hit him as they walked out into the courtyard, and Loki saw a familiar shape. Pale and grey, but still familiar.

“Boda?” Angrboda’s name was but a whisper on his tongue. Regardless, the spirit turned to him. It was much more defined than that spirit Loki had encountered while looking for Hel. Perhaps it was a special feature of being so close to the Goddess of Death herself?

“Loki.” Angrboda’s voice was crisp, dead and yet so very him. “What are you doing here? Are you dead?” He didn’t sound concerned at all. Loki cringed. Was he angry? Did he blame Loki for his death? “Figures.” He snorted. “Who did it, Thor? Did he realise he was in love with a bloody blue Frost Giant?” He sneered.

“We have a daughter,” Loki tried. 

Angrboda scoffed. “We? **_You_ **have one, **_I’m_** dead, and it’s all your fault.” Hela waved her hand and Angrboda vanished. Taking pity on her half-brother, she added. “It’s not that he hated you, I’m sure he doesn’t. I’m sure he didn’t even blame you. Spirits get angry when they die… that’s why they tell you not to speak ill of the dead, the dead become vengeful.”

Loki shook his head. “No, he is right. It was my fault that he died.”

“How so? He was the one who chose to attack.”

“Because he caught me in bed with Thor. He’s always been possessive.”

“You cheated?”

“Well, no. Angrboda and I had agreed at the start of our rekindling that what we were doing was casual… I suppose that I should have known better.”

Hela shook her head. “No… what he did was of his own accord. I know that your brother killed him, in defence of you. I am certain that if your brother hadn’t acted, then I would have received two souls from his tryst, not just the one.” She looked knowingly at Loki. She reached behind her neck and brought out a necklace, not dissimilar to the pendant he’d been gifted as a youngling.

“Odin gave this to me, a millennium after he banished me here. I suppose that he felt sorry,” she didn’t sound sad or remorseful in the slightest, just disinterested. “It’s a pendant he gave me, one side is of Asgard-”

“And the other side is of a special interest, yes, I know.” Loki nodded.

“-is of my **_dominion_** ,” Hela said, showing him the other side that depicted a skull. “I’m showing you this, because even though I know that the future seems bleak, what with Odin ordering you banished and all, I hope you realise that in time he will come around. He is a stern, sturdy, cross man… but such happens when you are a father to all. Never doubt that our father is wise.” No lies, no deception. Hmmm. Interesting. Did Hela have genuine affection for their father? She seemed disdainful of Odin and Frigga earlier… he supposed that when it came to dysfunctional families- heck, just families in general- it was hard to be disdainful **_or_** affectionate towards any one family member, it was oftentimes a medley of both: people were grey, after all.

Take Laufey for instance! Laufey detested him, but if Loki were being 100% honest, and chose not to look at everything so cynically… there were times. Few and far between, but Laufey had his moments. He thought to Jarnsaxa. His cousin had been firm that Laufey had brought Jarnsaxa in as a playmate to Loki, though at the time Loki had seen it as Laufey just shoving attention to anyone in the family that wasn’t him. How could he not with how often Laufey praised his cousin and completely disregarded **_him?_** He hadn’t even had to change his appearance all that much for Laufey and Farbauti to not recognise him, because why would they? They didn’t care about him. 

He shook it off. “My other side is a book with wisps.” Loki said, removing it from his space pocket. “I suppose I should be happy that he knows me well enough to judge that I enjoy seidr and reading.”

Hela paused, analysing him carefully, before taking his pendant. An odd look crossed her face, but she commented nothing. “Pendant… interesting…” they finished their walk at the entrance to the castle. “This is hot,” she warned him, handing him the box. “It gives Gaia power over death **_once_** , do not open this box, make sure that she gets it.”

“Alright.” Loki opened up one of his space pockets.

“And be quick. It seems that some have caught wind of a person venturing into Hel to retrieve something. You’ll have to be careful to avoid detection. Good luck getting back to Midgard.”

.

Byleistr sat at the dinner table. Farbauti had already gone back to Vanaheim with Thrym for emotional support, but Byleistr refused to follow. It wasn’t even liked his mother had known that he had left. He picked at his greens. He didn’t feel like eating.

Laufey sent him a look, but then looked back down at his own food. What? Was his father embarrassed by him? Byleistr refrained from slamming his forearms down on the table. He was not a child, he supposed. He stared Laufey down instead. If all this was true, if everything was true, why wait until now? He must have at least **_suspected_** it earlier on.

Helblindi and Jarnsaxa both ate on awkwardly. Jarnsaxa was filling his body with nutrients so that he could go and feed the baby later. Jarnsaxa spared a glance at his cousin, before continuing to eat in silence.

.

“Where has he gone!?” Odin boomed. It was moments like this that Frigga understood full-well how Thor had managed to wield the power of thunder.

“He is chasing his true love, and I will say no more of this,” Frigga made a motion over her lips.

“Wife, are you **_mad!?_** He needs to get over this! He belongs with Sif, who he shall marry as soon as I bring him back from whatever madness your sister and you have set him after!”

“Sif is **_gone_** , husband. She is in a different relationship with different **_people_**. Don’t you see, husband? Thor never would have been happy with her, neither she with Thor.”

“We weren’t happy, once,” Odin grumbled. 

“We worked it out later, but the fact remains that we were new with one another, Sif and Thor are not. Besides, we started out unhappy and wound up happy, they would have gone the other way, it would have been a disaster.”

“I suppose. So who is this new maiden that he longs for?”

“You’re going to want to sit down.”

.

Loki made a mad dash as soon as he was up-side again. He needed to get to Midgard as soon as possible. 

“Gaia! Gaia!” Nothing. Odd, for someone who actually wanted this bloody box, he would have thought she’d… she’d… of course. The challenging part of this task hadn’t been to retrieve the box from Hela…

It had been to get it to Gaia, on his own, _alive_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew! Thor's part really was written a bit ahead of everyone else's, so we won't see him touching down next to Loki until the next chapter (I know, writing this non-linearly makes it harder to understand as you read, but bear with me!)
> 
> Thanks for reading! :)


	16. Chapter 16

Loki had travelled from Niflheim to Midgard before, that was his one saving grace. He made his way to the crevice he’d used the last time that he’d done this, being sure to check for anybody who might be following him.

The path was: Niflheim to Svartalfheim to Vanaheim to Musspelheim to Midgard. It was the only way to get back to Midgard without running through Odin and Laufey’s realms.

He rifled through the dead-looking bushes, using his seidr to reach around. On Jotunheimr, when he had first started discovering these gateways, he’d been quite poor at seidr. He’d only managed to find his first portal because he’d been flung through the air by an angry Frost Giant, and had managed to pass through the portal and into Vanaheim. It had been a miserable experience, but it had also taught him not to look for portals in densely populated areas, because they tended to prefer isolation. Later, when he dated Angrboda, he would come to learn that one could use their seidr to search for areas of fluidity between two realms, and that you could use those to travel between them.

Ah ha! Bingo! He found the crevice under the thick, dead, thorny _urgardr_ bush. He dipped one foot in, and then another, and found himself standing on Svartalfheim. He couldn’t see two feet in front of him, given how dark and menacing the planet’s atmosphere was. He sincerely hoped that Malekith the Accursed did not find him. Norns knew that he was a megalomaniacal barbarian with a nose that could sniff out an object of power three realms away. Hadn’t Hela said that foes were waiting for him? Damned Gaia.

The tricky bit with Svartalfheim’s portal was that it was actually below the ground. He would first have to venture out to the… seaside, if you could call it that. It was mostly just a large crater/canyon with no water in sight! Then again, Dark Elves didn’t really drink much water (and they had ginormous lakes to provide the water that they _did_ drink), no, the monsters mainly relied on the Essence for liquid nourishment.

Loki turned into a bird and took to the skies, flying off in the direction that he _thought_ the seaside was in… oh well, whichever direction he flew he would be sure to reach it in two or three days, he supposed.

.

Byleistr was certain that his mother would have realised that he wasn’t waiting for him in Vanaheim right now. He wanted to hate his father for the damage he had caused, wanted to hate him for souring his relationship with his own mother, but how could he? How could he when Loki had been _molested_ , under his own damned nose! Of course he bloody fucking had! Byleistr had been in the damned room when Farbauti had made those comments about runts. Byleistr had thought it odd and brushed it off. Now, to find out that there was more, to find out that Loki had fucking told someone _else!_

He didn’t blame Jarnsaxa. Sure, Jarnsaxa was an unlikeable person in general, but he didn’t blame him. He had been thrown an accusation during the middle of a confrontation, an accusation about his own uncle, from someone who he had made a point throughout his life to discredit and envy. But he did blame himself. He was Loki’s big brother. Sure, he wasn’t as sappy as Nornsdamned Helblindi, but he had **_always_** been there to protect Loki. Who had found Loki after one of his and Angrboda’s fights, after going out on a whim, and carried him home? Who had killed that bloody man for trying to kill Loki? _Him_ , it had always been **_him_** , and here he was having had failed his brother on a rather big front.

He didn’t know how to proceed from here. He was scared and tired and low-in-spirits. Maybe he ought to head out to the pub or something.

.

“What do you mean his destiny is to end up with _Loptr_!?” Odin barked, astonished.

“ _Loki_ , husband, please. And surely you realised that as soon as Loki had been banished and Thor had returned, he went through a vegetative period.”

“He was worn out from the battle against that ferocious Forest Witch, Angrboda.”

“Bah! There were barely two scratches on him,” Loki did all the heavy lifting, Frigga rolled her eyes internally. “And Baldr talked about how distracted Thor seemed from his task whenever he was presented with Loki. How furious it made him that another man was trying to court him, how he would spend unnecessary amounts of time with him… how they slept together even though Thor knew it was forbidden.”

“Breaking rules that could lead to war is what Thor does best, he is a fool!” Odin pointed out.

“Even when he knew what you had promised Baldr for getting Thor through all of this? _Even when Baldr gave him his_ ** _permission_** _, because he knew that Thor was in love, and he was willing to lose Karnilla for Thor and Loki to be together?_ ” Frigga prompted.

This… This was different. Thor was a bonehead, irrational at his best and downright dangerous at his worst. But Baldr was a different story. His son with Frigga had been rational from birth, his first words had been ‘please’ and ‘thank you’.

“And besides, I know that you could not truly detest Loki,” Frigga said, quieter this time. “I know that though you will deny it to your deathbed, you are not truly impartial towards your children. I didn’t let you kill Hela back 30000 years ago when she tried to invade Midgard because I knew you’d spend your whole life regretting it even if it was what she deserved,” she laid a hand on her husband’s arm. “I know that for all your faults, Odin Borson, that you do, genuinely, love your children. I know you feel guilty towards Loki. I know deep down somewhere that you won’t stop feeling guilty until you make things right with him.”

Odin said nothing. Frigga knew her husband well enough to know that he wouldn’t comment on this. Odin was like Thor in that he liked to bottle up his emotions, but both men also had their moments, and she believed in him. She may not have been all too in to him when they met, but what she had seen over the past 100000000 years that they had spent together had been enough to make her _want_ to stay.

.

To Loki’s credit, he hadn’t done any tasks in a while, and was a bit out of practice with being sneaky. Also to Loki’s credit, how was he supposed to know that Svartalfheim had no birds, or that a hunter in Malekith’s party would shoot him down for meat or sport or whatever these maniacal Dark Elves had had in store for him.

So naturally he'd had to transform, and that was how he'd ended up tied to a tree to a tree with a vicious, white-haired dark-elf staring him down, looking for a way to break Loki.

Here’s something they don’t often teach in history class: Dark Elves and Jotnar are distant cousins, both descendants of Ymir. Loki’s line went Ymir, Vali, Nal, Laufey. Malekith’s went: Ymir, Leikn, Mazerot (then of course Malekith’s son, Auvli). The only reason that this is relevant:

“Cousin of winter.” Malekith finally nodded towards Loki, clearly having had taken time to decide how best to address the one he wished to steal from. “Well, this is a pleasant surprise. I believe that you have something I want.”

“I do not know what you are speaking of, cousin of dread.” Dark Elves had an advantage over the Jotnar that came from them being half-Jotunn and half-Fire-demon, which was that somehow their bloods had mixed and mingled to create a venom that could kill few creatures, among them Jotnar. This was, of course, only in large doses, but small doses of it were still like acid to the skin. Loki eyed Malekith warily. Loki was half-Aesir, and was not currently in Jotunn garb, but ancient fears still lurked in the back of his mind like spiders behind one’s bed, unnoticed until they move out into the open.

“Come now, you know I seek Hela’s Box.”

“Hela’s Box?” Loki feigned ignorance. “What… As in the Queen of Helheimr?”

“Don’t play games with me, boy.” Malekith snapped, Loki flinched involuntarily at the sight of those fangs of his. Old tales running through his mind: _Say, brother, did I ever tell you of the Frost Giant that wandered onto Svartalfheim? They found him littered in poison, bite marks on him, his flesh rotting away. Father says it was a purply-brown colour, that his organs and bones were on display._ ** _Mother_** _recalled the smell to me, shall I tell you what it is? He says it smells like something between rotting fish and agony- but I don’t really get what_ ** _agony_** _would smell like, so I think he might be exaggerating._ Loki shook a little. Curse Byleistr and all those horror stories he liked to spew, that brother of his was far too into bloodshed and murder for his own good. “I know you have Hela’s box! I saw it in the Mystic Ponds!” Could **_everyone_** scry nowadays!? (Well, everyone but him, he supposed).

“I don’t have it.”

“Beat him for it.” Malekith declared, walking away.

.

Loki sat bruised and bloodied and gagged beneath the tree. He hadn’t given it to them. He needed Thor back, he needed Thor to see their son and his daughter, he needed them to be a family. He had told himself so many times. Thor wouldn’t care that Hel wasn’t his biologically, he would love her anyways. That was Thor for you. He just needed to get to him. To do that he just needed to be a god. For that he just needed to complete Gaia’s tasks. For that he just needed to be strong and get this box back to her, he sobbed. They’d tried spitting on him, even biting and scratching him, it had done nothing. That hadn’t stopped him from screaming bloody murder and crying out in perceived agony. It had been terrifying. He wouldn’t stop screaming, which was why Malekith ordered him gagged, and ordered his men done for the night. Loki could see the play, could see Malekith’s plan. All he had to do was keep Loki around long enough and he’d be able to extract the box from him.

Good plan, but Loki wasn’t planning on sticking around that long. The moment the men were asleep, he took his opportunity to turn into a snake and slither away. The man supposed to be guarding him had gone to pee, he’d have a good two minutes before he got back, and Loki planned to make every second of it count. He took off in flight once more, his wings partially broken from all the beating he had endured, and as a result his flight not as good as he would have hoped. Who cared? As long as he maximised the distance between himself and Malekith’s camp he would be fine.

.

Malekith cursed when the man in charge of guarding Loki told him he escaped. He ran the man through with a spear, before taking out his horn. He blew it, and waited and watched as the Wild Hunt came running to him. “Find Laufeyjarson.” He commanded, and off the Hellhounds went.

.

Loki managed to reach the edge Svartalfheim in one piece. It had taken longer than he had hoped on account of his injuries, but he’d always been a quick healer. He glanced downwards. Below him was an abyss. He needed to scale down the rock part of the ground, where he’d find an almost upside-down terrain. He knew this from the last time. He smiled internally, knowing that any non-seidrfolk would view what he was doing as ‘mad’. _Like Thor, probably._

Loki got down and used his seidr to give him sticky-fingers. That part was crucial, he reasoned, else he would fall straight down the side of the crust. He descended, feeling his lower body begging him to fall down to the murky beneath. He couldn’t fall. He had two children waiting for him at home. He had to be as precautious as possible. If he died Hel would be an orphan.

_Hel, Modi, he had been gone for what? Three days by now. Who knew how time passed in Helheimr relative to the rest of the Nine? For all he knew he could get back and his children could be school age. Wasn’t that a scary thought?_

He shook his head. Svartalfheimr’s atmosphere was toxic, but not physically, _emotionally_. That was another thing Byleistr had often droned on about to him. He’d taken it to be an old wive’s tale, hadn’t thought that it was possible for an atmosphere to make you more negative, but Byleistr had sworn up and down that that was why the Dark Elves were all so… well, the way that they were.

Loki heard a shuffling noise above him. There must be some poor animal up there, that wandered to the edge. He heard sniffing to confirm his theory. He felt a bead of sweat trail down his neck. Something wasn’t right here. He moved faster. The entire floor of Svartalfheimr’s underbelly was a portal, he wasn’t too far away from it.

He heard growling and looked up to see a dog following him. How in the Nine could a dog walk down without falling!? Upon further inspection he realised that there were more dogs above him. Crap.

He climbed down faster, his heart stuttering in his chest. The dogs gave chase. In a moment of panic, Loki simply let go of the side briefly before reattaching himself to it a good twelve seconds later. He seemed to have put some distance between him and the dogs. That distance didn’t last too long though because the leader of the pack jumped and managed to, in fact, close that distance. Were these dogs even vaccinated? Loki didn’t want **_rabies_** , there was no bloody cure in all the Nine for that yet!

Quickly, Loki let go again, this time falling further than before and swinging up at the curve at the bottom. The momentum allowed him a bit of a head start in his climb **_up_** the underbelly of Svartalfheimr. He scurried quickly before nearly beating his head in. _Of course_! He changed into a squirrel’s form and scurried the fuck up the wall. He could hear the dogs behind him, but dogs and squirrels ran at about the same speed, so he knew full-well that he was safe. He heard the dogs fall back a bit behind him. He reasoned that squirrels were probably better climbers, and that the dogs might be getting tired of running so vertically upwards. 

He pushed past the portal and let a relieved sigh out as he transformed back into his usual form in the safety of Vanaheim. 

This was dangerous. Two independent attempts on his life, all for a box that would give its wielder the opportunity to bring someone back to life… but why would Gaia even need something like this? She was a goddess, everyone knew that the gods didn’t die… unless she was planning to use it on a mortal…

That must be her plan then. She set this deadly task up on purpose, she knew he would die, and she intended to bring him back. But as what? A slave? Was this whole godhood thing just a trick to garner an immortal servant? Or maybe this was an ingredient in her whole ‘godhood potion’ or whatever she was using to make him immortal? He didn’t know, this was all so confusing and he hated how damn vague this crazy woman’s answers always were.

He sat down in the long grass. If he were to continue, he would no doubt be killed. With Malekith hot on his tail it was only a matter of time. His best course of action, truly, would be to simply open the box. But then that would result in him failing his quest, and also breaking his oath to Hela about not opening this box… well, it wasn’t really an oath, now was it? He shook his head. The journey to Midgard would take a day at best and two at worst. It took a sunset to travel to the fiery realm. He got up and started walking. 

Jump off into the sunset. That was the way to get to Musspelheim. He lamented that had he not have been banished from Jotunheimr, he could have travelled straight from Niffleheimr to Jotunheimr to Midgard. A shorter route and undeniably a less dangerous one given how the chief residential sorcerer of Jotunheimr was now **_dead_**. 

Loki thought to old tales that Angrboda had told him, when curled up together, a mess of limbs in Angrboda’s hut. Back in the good old days before he had children to worry about or a crazy goddess who kept asking him to do weird things. 

Angrboda had spoken of a grand tree, Ygdrassil, whose branches stretched across the Nine, had spoken of its seidr which was apparently beyond imagine. Had spoken of how one could travel along its branches… the World tree, Angrboda had had a tattoo of it across his back, and a drawing of it on his floor. If Loki were shown the tree, he would undoubtedly be able to recognise it. He remembered Angrboda speaking of how all travel through the Nine came back to that tree… Loki wondered, if he could find that tree, maybe he could cut out that stop in Musspelheimr.

He didn’t want to admit it, but **_yes_** he’d heard stories about Musspelheimr form Byleistr as well. He had heard tales about Fire Giants eating young Jotnar, how Surtr’s crown was made from the bones of baby Jotunns, crying out for their mothers. How if you looked close enough at the crown, you could see their faces, screaming out in agony. How the people in Musspelheim wove their fabrics from the blood of Jotnar.

Loki really, really didn’t want to go back there. Plus, he was pretty sure that the royal family there didn’t like him anyways. Again, he was a reminder that they were not special.

Conflicted, he wound up sticking with what he knew best. Who even knew if this World Tree was real or not, Angrboda had, at times, spoken of things that made little sense, or were completely fictional, like ‘soulmates’ and ‘destiny’ for example. Weird man, his ex was.

Loki hopped along to the sea cliff he’d be diving off of. Into the liquid flame, out the volcano, his mind supplied. That was the route he’d be taking.

He was pounced on by something. A big, slobbering beast. Black in colour and with shaggy hair. His heart caught in his throat. A Hellhound! One of them must have followed him here! He struggled, but the bloody beast stayed where it was and Loki cried out in pain from where its claws dug into him. Thinking quickly, he transformed into a Jotunn and used his frostbite to get rid of the creature.

This worked and the creature yelped, jumping off quickly and scurrying away. Clearly the Frost of Jotunheimr was too extreme for a creature of Hel. On the converse, however, Loki suffered burns to his own skin. Jotunn skin was quite sturdy, but it had burned through. He lay in the grass, panting for air to no avail. He was certain he would die.

But he didn’t have to. No. He didn’t. He materialised the box from his space pocket, using the last of his strength to hold it out in front of him.

And his world turned black.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CREDITS TO LOKI AGENT OF ASGARD ISSUES 11 AND 13! I DO NOT OWN MOST OF THE LINES THAT THE APPARITIONS AND ODIN SAY!
> 
> Now that that's out of the way, I doubt that there are more than two chapters left! Thank you guys so much for sticking around this long! :) I know my updates have been pretty inconsistent, and it's been so great to see you guys sticking around and reading this regardless!
> 
> Take care! :)
> 
> [Also, for those of you who have not read the Loki: Agent of Asgard series, 10000000/10 recommend, OMG I love it so much!]

Loki remained in that darkness for a while. It took him a good ten minutes to realise that no, he was most definitely not dead, not unconscious either. He just couldn’t see. “Hello!?” He tried. But there was nothing, no sound, no response, he was trapped.

This must have been why Hela had told him not to open the box. It must have been a ‘surprise’ for Gaia whenever she used it. How was he going to get out of this stupid damned place?

“Hello!?” He tried again. Nothing. Again. Grr, there must be someway out of here.

_Mmmm… choices, choices_ a voice echoed, though there was no body to them. He used his seidr as a light, but there was nothing to see, the area around him was completely empty. For some reason the pendant that Odin had given him all those years ago flashed in his mind, as though it was holographic. When he viewed it one way it was the book, when he viewed it the other it was aman speaking. He assumed it was a man, at least. Him perhaps? Some version of him? It had wild hair and looked a bit like the outline of a cartoon [rugrats] . Wild hair, cackling. Why was his brain trying so hard to remind him of his father’s acknowledgement of Loki’s prowess with seidr? Was that the way out, perhaps? A lot of seidr?

“Hello!?” A voice called out. His but also, not him… he spun in its direction to be faced with… him? But also not him. A look alike?

It seemed more like a projection. Blank eyes staring directly at him, but him undoubtedly. Older though… not by much, but definitely older.

“Who are you?” He asked.

“My name is Loki. Son of Laufey and Farbauti of Jotunheimr.” that just made Loki’s skin crawl.

“Farbauti… is your father?”

“Mother.”

“What of Laufey?”

“He is my father. Is he not yours?”

“He is my mother. Odin is my father.”

“Odin is my father too, I suppose. He took me in as a young boy from Jotunheimr, though conversations with my future self make it seem as though I was the one who orchestrated the whole thing…” the other Loki admitted pensively. “Never mind that. Who is that?”

Loki turned and behind him was a creepy-looking, haggard man in a green costume that was low-key cringe. “Who am I?” The man cackled, clearly mad. “Why, I am King Loki, God of Evil, brother and foe of Thor of Asgard, adopted son of Odin, and, I reckon, your future,” he pointed straight at that other Loki.

“That is impossible.” Loki_1 replied. “I am the God of Lies, not the God of Evil.”

“Better than him, he is the God of Nothing… yet.” The old man sniffed. “Oh, he is a god alright… god of something or the other. Why don’t you ask him, what do you aim to be young one? God of Lies or Evil.”

“God of neither.” Loki shook his head. He couldn’t imagine Thor loving someone who was the god of either of those things.

“What of him?” Loki_1 pointed in the direction of a young boy who had just materialised.

“Oh, ignore him. He is Loki, the Boy Who Died.”

“How did he die?” Loki questioned.

“Oh, I convinced him to kill himself.” The old man shrugged.

“Oh that’s awful!” “How could you!?” Loki_1 and Loki both cried out respectively.

Old Man Loki just held his hands up to quieten them. “I am the God of Evil.”

“Worry not for me,” the child said then. “I didn’t want to die, sure. I was a fresh start. What everyone said they wanted. But the old was deemed preferable to the good, as is always the way. So the void took me, I died forever, but I died as myself. I assume that all of us here are dead.”

There was an awkward silence before Loki_1 said his piece.”I didn’t want to die either. I laid schemes upon schemes, all to free myself from the yoke of destiny. But my trick turned back on me. When the void took me, I died forever. And from that moment on, any Loki in my shape can only be a worthless copy,” he sounded sad as he glanced over to the young Loki, who just rolled his eyes. “Sorry, brother.” Was whispered quietly.

“I’m not dead, not yet, but you must have realised that given how different I look to the rest of them.” King Loki walked up to Loki, Loki didn’t like him one bit. “I have come here to guide you from this prison.”

“And how am I to accomplish that.”

“As yourself, it is impossible, only a god can… thankfully, however, you are a god. That pendant that Odin gave you proves it.” Loki’s pendant materialised into King Loki’s hand, which he dangled in front of Loki. “Loki, God of Lies. Say it with me.”

“No!” Loki shook his head. “No! I can’t be the God of Lies, Thor would never love me!” He sobbed.

“Ah, Thor, Thor… Worry not, young Laufeyjarson, in no reality will it ever be that your destiny is not intertwined with that of Thor’s.”

“Destiny is not real.”

“Oh but it is, how else would three iterations of you- all different, but the same- be standing before you right now.”

“I-I don’t know, you’re just an illusion in my mind!” 

King Loki chuckled. “You’ll have to make a choice soon, Loki, though it is not much of a choice,” he waved his hand and in the centre of the room a podium appeared with a crown akin to the ones worn by all three other Lokis appeared. Atop of it sat a crow. Loki assumed that these had always been there, that the room merely hadn’t been illuminated enough for him to see it. It was really annoying, this abyss’s lighting.

The crow sqwuaked. “Be quiet, bird of ill omen.” Kid Loki chastised the bird, which stopped its antics.

“Come now, Loki, there’s not much of a choice here. Take the crown, embrace your fate, fulfil your destiny.

“No, no, _no!_ ” Loki shook his head, his voice growing louder with every word.

The room began to crack and fray, it felt very much like space dissolving itself (was that even possible) before the entire room disappeared.

.

That was how Thor found Loki, bloody and dead on the grass in Vanaheimr. Thor immediately sprang into action, bending down to check him over. Oh. _Not_ dead, no, alive for certain, strong and healthy pulse, he knew this as a warrior.

Then what? Asleep? “Loki!” Thor bellowed. Nothing. He shook the man. “Loki! Loki! Loptr! Snake that won’t stop biting me in the arse!” In Thor’s defence over the last one, he happened to _like_ snakes, thank you very much.

Thor heard a growl coming from behind him. He turned around. An army of Hellhounds and Dark Elves had him surrounded. He picked Mjolnir up. He would not let these monsters harm Loki.

.

Loki wandered around the white for a bit. What was this place?

It took him a while to realise that there was snow falling. Jotunheimr perhaps? No, the sky was too dark. Wait, when did a sky develop?

And that was when he saw it. The crow again, sitting on a man’s arm. Odin’s arm. Oh no, Odin was here. Odin was here, and he was going to kill Loki, both for messing with his favourite son and for insulting the gods by using something that was clearly meant for them and not him, and also for going behind Odin’s back in an attempt to gain godhood and als-

“Loki, my child who is both son and daughter.” Odin greeted him, nodding. 

“Why are you here?”

“Because I love you.” Odin admitted, quietly. 

“Love me? You don’t even know me. And aren’t I the one that hurt your son, old man?” Loki asked bitterly. _I love you_ , bah, who did this man think that he was, walking into Loki’s life after 1000 years.

“You are my child, and for that alone I love you."

“You ordered my banishment from both Jotunheimr and Asgard, it would have been my death had Frigga not intervened.”

“Aye.” Odin admitted once more. “I am an old man, foolish and fond, and quick with my temper. I am lucky to have a wife who grounds me, and who cares for me enough to prevent me from making large, big, giant mistakes. There are times when I show little wisdom, which is a bit ironic isn’t it?” He smiled a little at that. Loki couldn’t help a little twitch of his own lips. “Here there is wisdom,” he pointed to his eyepatch. “The strange wisdom of the World Tree I gave this eye to.” So it was real.

Odin sat down cross legged and looked up at Loki, who joined him. “There are ten realms in this reality.” He started to draw lines in the ground.

“Ten?”

“Heven, but we don’t talk about it.”

“Aye.” Loki nodded, both getting it and also not quite getting it.

“Ten spheres, ten universes, and the tree winds through them all… through every star and planet, every hero and villain, every life… every _story_.” He looked back to Loki. “I am Odin Borson, who built the world from corpse-meat. I am Odin One-Eye, and sometimes my one eye is open. But above all, I am Odin All-Father. I am the one who speaks for the tree. I am king of all stories… and you are my child.”

“Then you must help me-”

“No. I must not. You are my child and you are loved, these are truths that do not change. But this is your trial and your task, O god of lies.” So it was true then, Loki thought, his heart sinking. “You will get through this, you have power of your own. Remember, remember what a lie is.”

“Fathe-” and Odin was gone and he was all alone again. “Typical.” Loki huffed. “Absolutely typical! Father of the Year, everybody, Odin Allfather, father to all!” He grumbled.

“Well, have you made your decision yet?” Air hit the back of his head, King Loki was back, it seemed.

“No.”

“Tick tock, Loki, the clock is ticking.” And then King Loki materialised a viewhole. It showed Thor fighting monsters.

“Thor!? Where is he?”

“Defending your unconscious, vulnerable body.” King Loki chuckled. “Mmm, I see why you like him. Very strong indeed. Still, I wonder how long he can fend off Malekith’s forces on his own. If only he had a god to help him fight,” King Loki looked pointedly at Loki.

“Gods can’t die.”

“Oh, dear Loki, everyone can die. Didn’t you notice that all three iterations of us were gods? And yet two were dead.”

“Fine. I’ll do it, I’ll become the God of Lies,” Loki said, numb. There was no point in becoming the kind of god Thor would want if Thor would be dead anyways. 

“Excellent,” King Loki gestured to the headpiece. “Now take your crown and be on your way.”

Loki stared at the crown resolutely, and made his way up to the stand. His father’s voice nagged in his mind. Remember what a lie is, remember what a lie is. He didn’t want King Loki to win, couldn’t help but he was taking him down a dark road. He thought to the others’ tales about their own lives and how they had tried for something and how it hadn’t work out… tales. A lie is a fib is a tale. A tale is a story. A lie is a story.

A lie is a story. His pendant had a book on it. The holograph-thing was a person speaking. Oral narration. Of course! Of course of course of course! He spun on King Loki, grabbing the crown from the stand.

“I hereby decree myself Loki, God of Stories. Open, prison of darkness!” 

And then it wasn’t so dark anymore.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :) The worst chapter in this entire story, objectively, and that includes earlier chapters that were written just because I didn't want to study [of which those chapters cary many, MANY inconsistencies], I promise that the next chapter will be better, less disjointed, and less OOC for certain characters.

Thor was surprised, to say the least, when the body he was protecting burst into flames. 

“ _Loki_!” He screamed in a not-shrilly voice, before summoning rain to put Loki out. But the flames did not give way, and instead, Loki started to glow. Urgh, if it weren’t for the Dark Elf troops besieging him he would’ve had more time to think on it.

Then suddenly the flames went out and Loki stood up. He wasn’t bloody anymore, which was weird… and also, had Loki gained a bit of weight? And had his hair grown longer? Not that Thor was complaining, just an observation.

Malekith approached. Upon seeing the box, open and used, he was enraged. “Kill them! Kill them both! Do whatever it takes!”

Malekith's hunting party turned towards them, weapons at the ready, dressed in armour blessed by Dark Elf magics that were near impenetrable. Thor grabbed Loki by the waist and swung Mjolnir into the air, pulling them off.

“To the sea.” Loki shouted.

“What?”

“The _sea_ , Thor, the **_sea_**!”

“Alright!”

Thor took them to the sea where they landed on a cliffside. “Thor, what are you doing here?”

“I have come for you, Loki.” Thor said, his eyes earnest. “I made a huge mistake… I didn’t realise it at first, but I think that I have strong emotions towards you.”

“Strong em-”

“ ** _Love_** , Loki, I think I love you!” Thor snapped, irritated. “It’s been brought to my attention that I’ve been in love with you for a while and that I can’t really seem to fight it. I thought if I just ignored it-”

“That it would go away.” Loki had thought so too. There had been a good few months that he was simply happy having Verity and the kids- heck, even before that, when he had first met Thor. He had thought that maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to bear the man’s child, a thought he’d never had before, not even in his hundreds of years long relationship with Angrboda. “I thought so too, at first.”

“So you will come back to Asgard with me?”

“I am banished.”

“I am sure that mother will have convinced father to overturn the exile by now.”

“I’m on a quest, Thor, I am bound by ancient magics-”

“I will help you.”

“I have to get back to Midgard, Thor, my-”

Thor stepped forwards and kissed Loki flat on the lips. He withdrew after a moment, leaving Loki stunned.

“Come back to Asgard with me, Loki, please. Father will dissolve whatever quest you are on.”

“-kids are there.”

.

After an hour of explanations, Thor had been beyond mad. He had ordered Heimdallr to send them over to Midgard, where Loki was currently leading them to his apartment where the children would be. 

Thor had a son. Well, he had quite a few sons actually. But he had a son. Outside of purpose. A bastard for all intents and purposes, no title no nothing. He was so nervous. How long had it been since he’d last seen Loki? Did Jotnar mature different? Norns, what if this little boy was already walking and talking and knew how to do his taxes and-

“There you are!” A woman’s voice called. “I’ve been wondering when you’d get back!”

“Well, I’m back.” Loki responded.

“How was the quest?” This purple-haired punk came out of what Thor could only assume to be the bedroom. Thor felt his blood boil. He had been left unaware of his parentage to Loki’s children and yet here this girl was practically **_living_** with Loki. Oh well, at least if he couldn’t have Loki, Loki would end up with a totally rad, punk-

“I haven’t completed it. A dog tried to kill me and I used the thing I was supposed to deliver to save myself.”

“Neat. Is that Thor?”

“Yup.”

“I assume you two want some alone time?”

“That would be nice, feel free to come over for dinner!”

“You don’t mean it.”

“You always know when I’m lying,” Loki teased. “Tomorrow then!”

“Tomorrow… and Loki.”

“Yeah?”

“Gaia came over while you were gone. She asked to see Mödí and Hel.”

Thor glanced as Loki seemed to freeze all over. Clearly this woman whom he had had a deal with made him uneasy. He couldn’t help but tense a little as well. A strange, powerful woman had been near his son.

“Well I hope you told her to fuck off.”

“I told her that you weren’t home, and that you wouldn’t allow it. She got a bit angry, but left eventually.”

“For an all-powerful goddess you’d think she’d be able to get to them without asking.”

“Seems not.” Verity shook her head. “Well, I best get going.”

“Farewell, Verity!”

“Goodbye, Loki! Goodbye Thor!”

Thor nodded in reply. Verity, hmm. Nice name.

Loki moved into his room and gestured Thor along. Thor followed.

Inside the room were two cribs that were as close to one another as cribs could be. So this was where his son and Angrboda’s daughter lay. He noticed his son immediately: he had developed a mop of hair as gold as Thor’s own, and had what looked to be strong arms. Plus, the little girl sleeping next to him had pale blue skin, so that was obviously Angrboda’s daughter.

He felt something wash over him. Angrboda, Loki’s ex, who was now dead…Thor wouldn’t mind a daughter, if Loki would allow it. No child should ever have to grow up fatherless. Besides, she was kind of cute, like a bunny rabbit even if she were named for the Goddess of the Dead.

“Would you like to hold him?” Loki gestured to Mödí. Thor nodded, numbly. He may have sired six sons and two daughters [and was looking to adopt another one if Loki was willing], but he had never actually held a baby. A battle axe, a hammer, sure. But a baby? This was new territory to him. 

Loki placed Mödí in his arms without Thor even realising it. “Don’t overthink it,” Loki warned. Well how the fuck could he, now that there was a living, breathing **_baby_** in his hands!?

Thor looked down, shaking. His fear seemed to have woken Mödí up. At first, Mödí looked as though he were about to cry, but then he took pause for a moment and stared up into Thor’s eyes. Thor felt his heart shatter, his ears filled with sounds of warfare, and his eyes held visions of blood and destruction. He nearly dropped Mödí, but Loki swooped in to save the baby just in time.

“I-I’m sorry.”

“No, no, it’s alright, I take it it was your first time?”

“Aye.” It had felt a lot worse than could be chalked up to his first time holding a baby. Nevertheless, even when overcome with scenes of warfare and chaos, Thor had known in his heart as he held Mödí that then and there, he had been holding a king.

The commotion seemed to have woken Hel up, who too stared at Thor. When Thor looked into her eyes he saw none of that agony, something else instead. Something dark but beautiful, something peaceful and fulfilling. What the fuck? He may have never held an infant before, but he had certainly **_been_** around them! He’d spent time around _Tyrd_ for Verdandi’s sake! This wasn’t what babies were supposed to look like.

Then, these were no ordinary babies were they? No, they were special babies. Strong babies.

Jotunn babies. It must be the Frost Giant in them. Those tales of Jotnar eating Aesir children must have come from **_somewhere_**!

“Dare I ask what you are thinking now?”

“I wouldn’t recommend it,” Thor chanced a smile in Loki’s direction. 

“Thor, I must go to Gaia now, I must face the consequences for failing my task.”

“Then I must come with you.”

“Thor-”

“The last time you went on one of this woman’s tasks I found you near **_death_** , Loki!”

“I was fine!”

“Not if I hadn’t been there! Those Hellhounds were coming after _you_ , you know.”

“Oh, you’re insufferable.”

“Which is how you like me best.” Loki shook his head to avoid laughing. “Well, come on then, how do we find this old bitch?”

“I might have an idea.”

Loki took a step back, grabbed the book and read the pages. He flipped a few forward, to a blank spot. _Gaia’s lair is located at the top of Mt. Vestrahorn_. _Loki and Thor walk in, Mjolnir at Thor’s ready. Gaia is waiting atop her throne, her long black hair billowing out, when she notices them_. Then he turned back to the page where Thor was waiting, picked Thor up and placed him on the page he’d just written before joining him.

“What in the Nine just happened!?”

“A seidr trick I’ve wanted to try for a bit.” Since about two hours ago, when our father showed me how to seize control of my future and avoid having it shaped by the actions of myself in other timelines which I am unfamiliar with, and also to avoid having Gaia manipulating the outcome of my quests by confining me to a life of lying and trickery (which are fantastic hobbies, but not reallyjob-material).

“Oh, nice, did Angrboda teach you that?”

“Afraid not.”

“Well why would you just magick yourself in here and ignore me?” Grumbled Gaia, sitting tall and mighty on her throne, a good twenty feet tall, able to tower over both of them.

“I have lost the box.”

“Then I shall be giving you a new task, or no godhood.” 

“We have come to end his contract.” Thor spoke up, puffing out his chest.

“Then he will have to pay the price for it,” Gaia glanced down at Loki.

“Price, what price? I am sure that father will be able to cover it,” it was then that Thor noticed that Loki had gone still.

“She means my children, Thor.” He said, finally. 

“What?”

“I promised my children should I fail.”

“What!? Why would-”

“Because I had no **_intention_** of failing, Thor!” Loki snapped. “And besides, even if I had, where would the children have gone then, huh? I’ve been cast out, I have no access to my family, and Verity would die before they were halfway through primary school.” Loki was shaking. “The only way that I was going to fail was if I **_died_** , Thor.”

“What was the contract?”

“That I would complete these tasks and receive godhood.” A crow flew through the room, and suddenly Odin materialised.

“Father!?” Thor glanced, shielding Loki. Oh no, this was not good, surely he was here to reprimand him.

“Jord, I have come to put an end to your shenanigans once and for all.” Odin said sternly, his voice gruff.

Something incredible happened then. Gaia’s hair colour changed, turning a bright blonde, her eyes changed colour too, blue as the heavens, her skin became fairer. She looked almost like Thor. “Mother,” Loki heard Thor murmur.

“Odin, you have no business here.”

“That is where you are wrong, Jord. You are holding Loki in a contract which you yourself have broken.”

“And how is that?”

“You promised him godhood-”

“Which I will give hi-”

“But he is already a god! You cannot give someone something that which they already have!” Thor turned to Loki and mouthed the word ‘god?’ to which Loki just pointed at his wrist and made a circular motion, mouthing back ‘later’.

Ga- _Jord_ went silent at that.

“Mother, why have you done this?” Thor asked, finally. 

“He hurt my baby, I did what was right.” Jord insisted stubbornly. “You should be thanking me.”

“For what, almost getting him **_killed_**!?”

“For getting revenge for the games he played with you on Jotunheimr. Lying to you, interfering with your tasks, confusing you, getting Angrboda killed.”

Loki looked down. “What happened to Angrboda was in no way Loki’s fault, and anyone with eye’s could see that!” Thor snapped. “And why should you care for him anyways, he tried to kill me as well.”

“I am Angrboda’s grandmother.” Jord announced. “I am Ariadne’s mother, by a peace pact with Vanaheimr.”

“I was related to him,” Thor felt sick to his stomach.

“So you’re just another one of the adults in his life who let him down then, huh?” Loki said, outraged. 

“And you’re just another slattern that led him down the wrong path. You and that Jarnsaxa-cousin of yours!”

Odin coughed loudly. “Personal prejudices aside, I believe that we are done here. Thor and Loki, let’s go.”

“Father, I lo-” Thor began, but Odin cut him off.

“I know, son. I know. Your mother told me everything. Goodbye, Jord.”

“Goodbye, son snatcher.” The mouth of the cave closed on them, Odin clicked his fingers and they were on Asgard.


	19. Chapter 19

Upon arriving in the Golden Realm for the first time ever, Loki turned to his father, and Thor with him.

“We need to go back,” they both said.

“Why in the Nine would you want to?” Odin huffed.

“My kids,” Loki explained.

Without a word they were sent back to retrieve them. Loki contemplated going to Verity’s apartment, to knock on her door and say goodbye to her forever, but couldn’t find the strength to do it. He had been such a burden on her the past year and a half, he thought that maybe it would be better for her if he just faded out of her life like he never existed anyways.

Thor made him go back and say goodbye to her.

They both cried for about two hours, but eventually hugged and parted ways with Loki promising to visit as soon as he could, knowing full-well that that might be a lifetime for her.

.

Frigga was delighted to hold her grandbabies. “What’s this little girl’s name?” She cooed over Hel.

“Hel.” Loki replied. Frigga didn’t miss a beat, despite the memories flooding her of a little girl with hair the colour of obsidian running through the halls of Asgard, laughing. That little girl had changed a lot, she supposed. She partially blamed herself, but then she and Odin hadn’t exactly started that marriage happy now had they?

“Hellie,” Frigga cooed, walking away with Loki’s infant. “Oh, aren’t you a cute thing? Yes, why don’t we go see if any of my jewellery fits you, huh?”

Odin, of course, hadn’t let go of Mödí since they’d arrived on Asgard with him. Thor wasn’t entirely surprised, Mödí may be small, but he could already tell that there was something mighty about him. He was going to be a magnificent king, so long as he didn’t kill of all his playmates with those glares of his.

.

Baldr, upon learning of the existence of Mödí and Hel declared that Thor was dishonourable for leaving Loki unwed as Loki was raising his child. Frigga agreed. Karnilla agreed. And, finally, after about two months, Odin too agreed.

They were to wed at Yule. Loki’s family was coming, he hadn’t seen his brothers in so long, he was so excited. Still, he felt a small pain in his heart as he reflected on that which he had lost in his journey here. Angrboda and Verity were dear to him, and he doubted he’d ever see either of them again.

His relationship with Thor had improved drastically. Thor had had trouble trusting him at first, understandably, but after two long months of spending time together, raising two kids, sparring, and fucking, their relationship had grown.

Mödí had taken his first steps already, with Hel lagging behind. Loki worried for her, she seemed uncomfortable on Asgard. She was irritable, she shuffled around a lot, it was hard to get her to sleep. Maybe it was the heat?

He had taken her to the healers, who had said everything was fine with her, and to a perplexed Frigga who also seemed to sense that something was off, but couldn’t detect anything with her seidr.

Hel also wasn’t speaking, which was a bit alarming.

“You’re just looking for a reason to worry, beloved. Now turn off the lights and come to bed, we wed tomorrow.”

“You know, most couples sleep apart on the eve of their wedding.”

“We have two children together, there’s no way that either of us are virgins, now _good_ ** _night_**!” Thor mumbled into his pillow.

.

All the Foreign Dignitaries were in attendance of the wedding, even Jord and Hela. It was the biggest celebration in the past million or so years.

Loki had spent the entire morning being scrubbed and made up, dressed in traditional Asgardian robes: fine white silk with gold trimmings. He wore a tunic with tights and lots and lots of jewellery. His marriage crown was made of holly and roses, the same one that Frigga wore about a million years ago, and he had been sent a sword made of ice by his mother, one from his own ancestor, Nal.

He had almost thought to wear his birth skin, but he had been banished from Jotunheimr and he wasn’t so sure if it would be welcomed. Besides, he reasoned, he was a shapeshifter: was it even really fair to say that he had a skin? He was part Aesir, had he been raised on Asgard, then surely he would have chosen this skin over the blue. And the blue would only make him sensitive to the heat, what was the point adopting the skin of the parent that hated you?

Loki stepped through the hallway, ready to make his way into the Entrance Hall, when Frigga stopped him.

“Son, I have a wedding gift for you, and I think it’s most appropriate now.” She smiled at him.

“Oh, you didn’t have to get me anything,” he stammered quickly, embarrassed.

She smiled and said no more, as she pulled back a curtain.

“You were really gonna get married without your best-friend, huh?” Verity smiled at him, dressed in Asgardian garb.

“Verity?” He breathed.

“In the flesh.” She walked up to Loki to give him a hug. “Good luck out there.”

Loki turned to Frigga, tears in his eyes. “Thank you so much.”

_There’s more to come_ , “You’re welcome.” She smiled straight back at him.

.

From what Loki understood of it, Laufey was still apparently his guardian despite having had cut him off from the family- though what did confuse Loki was that these things were to be dealt with by the _father_ , and **_Odin_** was Loki’s father. Regardless, the previous night Thor had gone to Laufey’s rooms to pay the _mundr_ , at which point Laufey paid him the _he-man fylgia_.

Thor stood in front of him, holding the sword of one of his ancestors. Bor, most likely, Thor didn’t have that many ancestors. Thor bowed down to Loki and presented him with the sword. A gift for their future son. Except that they already had a son. Norns this was so fucked up. Anyways, Loki stood there holding Mödí’s new sword. He then bowed down and passed Loki Nal’s sword.

Thor took the ring off of the sword Loki had given him and put it on his own finger, and Loki did the same.

Frigga smiled down at them from her space at the very front of the room.

“Today, we join two sons of Odin in Holy Matrimony. If any object, simply shoot an arrow at one of them.” She said this part for custom, naturally everyone had been de-bowed before entering the room. “Good, then by the power vested in me, Frigga, goddess of marriage, I know pronounce Loki and Thor husband and husband. You may kiss.” Loki blushed at the thought of having to kiss Thor in front of all of these people, Thor just shrugged, grabbed Loki’s head, and smushed their faces together.

Thor then left to go guard the feasting hall until Loki arrived. Glancing around, Loki took quick notice of the fact that Farbauti wasn’t present. Odd, but not unwelcomed. Jarnsaxa, however, was there, with Thor’s child in his arms. This didn’t surprise Loki, since as ward it was his duty to represent Jotunheimr on foreign trips since he was to be a cherished member of the court. Still, Jarnsaxa must be **_so jealous_** right now, Loki kept his smile to himself. This must simply be eating him alive. He spied his brothers as well- his real ones, not the ones that Odin fathered. He wished deeply to talk to them, but reasoned that they would still be here until at least tomorrow, he had time.

For now he simply opted to enjoy his lover’s company. He smiled at Thor and took his arm as he lead him into the Feasting Hall, which Frigga, Freyja and Baldr had lovingly decorated.

The afternoon was filled with many more merriments such as singing and drinking and dancing. After a few hours, Loki excused himself for a moment, hoping that his siblings would catch up. Thor smiled at him in understanding, and simply turned to his friends and, rather awkwardly, to their half-siblings, Norns there were so many of them! Would Mödí have to sire heirs on every realm across the Nine? He hoped not! Then again, he supposed, it would be a lot better than having to bear them or something.

“Brother.” Byleistr greeted, slipping out into the hall beside him.

“Brother.” Loki nodded, smiling in relief. “It has been so long.”

“I’m so so sorry.” Byleistr fell down at Loki’s feet. 

“For what, brother?” Loki frowned.

“For killing Angrboda!”

“You saved my life, of course I am not upset with you, By. You did what you always do, you protected me. Who was the only person who believed me when I said that the Forest Witch was real? You were. Who carried me back when Angrboda nearly killed me? You did!”

“I have failed you too! I wasn’t there for you when mother was touching you!”

Loki stilled. “Did Jarnsaxa tell you that?” He asked, finally.

“After father divorced mother for it, he mentioned that you’d mentioned it. But Helblindi had already told me during the divorce.” Byleistr confessed. “Loki, I am so sorry, if I had known-”

“Then what? You would have killed your own mother,” Loki shook his head. 

“I have no mother.” Byleistr said suddenly, stern and short, with such finality it shocked Loki.

“It’s all so long ago, and I was never physically harmed. Do not blame yourself for not stopping something you didn’t even know was happening. Besides, it stopped centuries ago anyways. Let us leave it in the past.”

Byleistr looked confused, but he was upset and easily gave in to just nodding and accepting Loki’s plan forward. “I love you so much. Your children look just like you.”

“They’re babies.”

“Aye, but they have that same trickster energy that you have,” Byleistr smiled at his brother before noticing a looming shape approaching. “And that would be Helblindi. I’m sure that he would rather exchange words with you in private.”

“Aye. I hope to see you soon.”

“Of course,” and Byleistr left.

“It has been two winters too many without you, brother. I see a lot has changed.” Helblindi’s voice carried down the hallway.

“Well, I did have children, and I am getting married,” Loki joked. Helblindi smiled.

“I trust that Byleistr has told you about mother?”

“Yes.”

“Good. I am sorry it took us so long to do anything-”

“Helblindi, you, Byleistr, father, Jarnsaxa, Thrym, etc. didn’t know.” Loki shook his head. “Don’t you understand that nobody knew about this?”

Helblindi paused. “That doesn’t make it any less worse.”

“Yes it does, because the minute you all found out, you **_did_** act. You didn’t wait until it was convenient or some fucked up shit like that,” Loki sighed. “Don’t eat yourself up about it. Are you still seeing Gardr?”

“Yes, we were actually thinking about getting married ourselves.” Loki smiled. He had always liked Gardr, even when they were children the giant had had _some_ common sense about him.

“Good for you. I hope that you two will be very happy together.”

“Thank you brother.”

The next of his family to corner him into a conversation was Jarnsaxa.

“Loki, I am sorry for everything that I’ve ever done to you. I am sorry for not believing you when you brought up that uncle Farbauti had touched you.”

Loki shook his head. “I brought it up in the middle of an argument. Had the situations have been reversed, I’m not so sure that I would have believed you. Child molestation is a serious accusation, it shouldn’t be taken lightly but it shouldn’t be brought up as ammunition against someone either.”

They stood awkward for a moment, swaying slightly from all the mead they had both drunk.

“Did you bury him, then?”

“I preserved him.” Loki cupped his hands and drew the flower Angrboda was encased in from his space pocket. “Sometimes I even wear him in my hair.”

Jarnsaxa stared long and hard at the flower, but instead of throwing a tantrum or something, he simply smiled bitterly and said “He would’ve wanted you to have it. He did always love you more.”

“He loved you too, I am sure of it.” Loki promised him. Upon reflection of his past, Loki had come to the conclusion that while Angrboda undoubtedly loved him, there was also a manic obsession there that just made their entire relationship even more unhealthy than the power imbalance. Loki liked to think that had he never met Angrboda, and had Jarnsaxa been the one to date him instead, the two probably would have been very happy together. Anrgboda was obsessive, and Jarnsaxa loved being obsessed over.

.

“It’s still not alright, what you did.” Thor said to his birth mother in passing.

Jord simply shook her head, her magnificently blonde hair swaying as she did. “You are a father, Thor. You’ll never truly understand how mothers feel about their children.”

No, he supposed he never would. And given how his mother had treated Loki- even if he hadn’t ended up falling in love with him- he was grateful that he never would too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Epilogue coming up shortly! ;)


	20. Chapter 20

Thor carried Loki like a potato sack over his back, Loki swatting him upside the protest to the amusement of their guests. Thor took him to their room, where they were watched by each ruler of each realm. Norns that was uncomfortable.

.

As per tradition, the foreign dignitaries would be staying the whole week. Loki carried Hel to the dining room, Mödí running along happily in front of them. On his way there, he ran into Hela. She looked at both children.

“I never did thank you for helping me on my quest.” Loki said.

“No need, someone needed to stick it to Jord. So this is the one named after me, then?” She glanced at tiny little Hel, who shifted around a bit in her covers, as though trying to get a look at Hel.

Loki nodded. “Angrboda was very fond of your work, a worshipper of you. It was all that I could think of, to keep the spirit of him alive.” Loki realised almost immediately that Hela wasn’t listening, she was too busy staring at Hel in a way that made Loki uneasy.

“Is she unwell?” Hela finally asked.

“Yes, but we think it’s a heat fever. She’s been doing a bit better since we started putting cooling charms on her.” Loki defended.

“Better.” Hela nodded, still staring at Hel. Loki wound up adjusting her subtly, but in a way that made her less visible to Hela. “Has she spoken yet?”

“Wh-what? Why?” Loki’s defensive tone was all she needed to hear. She smirked for a moment before turning and heading to the dining hall.

.

Three years went by in the blink of an eye.

Thor had once again gotten Loki pregnant, this time they had another little boy who they named Bor, for their mutual grandfather. Norns that was fucked up.

Hel still hadn’t spoken or walked. Loki was worried. This was beyond what a normal ‘slow’ child displayed. Something was clearly very wrong, and yet the doctors could find nothing wrong with her, and hours upon hours under healing stones had done nothing for her.

One day he found her in her little bed and she was cold and stiff. Loki pushed her a bit, nothing. Then he pushed her around some more. No response. 

“ _Help!_ ** _Help!_** ” He screamed, trying desperately to revive his daughter. There was a weak pulse and yet no response, was she dead? Was she in a coma? What was going on?

Thor rushed in, followed by Mödí.

“Thor, she won’t respond to anything!” 

Thor took one look at his daughter, and bundled her up in his arms. “I think that I may know what is wrong with her.”

.

It was a long and hard fight to convince Loki that this was the right step for their daughter’s wellbeing. 

“ ** _My_** daughter’s, **_mine_**!” He had insisted, in a last-ditch effort to keep her beside him.

“Do you deny my paternal love for her?” Thor had asked sadly.

In the end, Thor won, and they took her to Hela.

It was as though miracles had been cast upon the little girl. The moment that they landed in the palace that Heimdall blasted them onto, she could walk, she turned up to Thor. “Tanksoo, papa!” And then, with a hug to her mother, she ran off towards where her Aunt Hela stood waiting for her.

“You knew,” Loki accused, lowly.

“I had my suspicions.” Hela shrugged. “I had a feeling that, being the mother of an infant, you would not be so welcome to the idea of your precious, tiny baby joining the legions of Hel.” Hela shook my head. “But yes, brother, to answer your unasked question, Hel is a goddess of death, just like me… but also not like me, in ways that are unclear as of yet.” She turned to the little thing that was staring up at her unblinkingly as she spoke. “In time she will rule my domain. Do not worry, I will take care of her. I will love her as the daughter I never had, and train her as the heir to a vast kingdom.”

“Can I-can I visit her?”

“Anytime you want, brother. Anytime you want.”

.

The years passed swiftly. Soon, they had another daughter, Thrud. Loki didn’t like to think of Thrud as Hel’s replacement, because obviously you can’t just replace someone like that, but he held her close to him regardless.

For the first century of her life, Loki visited Hel every three days, Thor accompanying him on almost all of these visits, alongside her brothers and sister. Eventually, as the years passed on, the urge to check on his daughter dwindled enough for him to only visit once a week. After all, she was no longer an infant, but a striking young girl [10 for you _Midgardians_ ] who needed her private time. Also, Loki had no doubt that Hela was growing impatient with all the unsolicited visits to her realm. Apparently Hel had gotten on quite well with Angrboda. She seemed to have an ability to make spirits not-so vengeful. It was unknown if this was an intentional ability, or a side affect of her presence, but Hela seemed quite pleased by it.

Mödí was a dashing boy, the next three centuries would see him wooing many a fine maiden and angering many, **_many_** fathers.

It came too soon, really it did. The day for Mödí to fulfil his duties as heir. Loki’s hair was greying. Had it really been 500000000 already? Thor had called Mödí, Thrudd, _Hel_ , Bor, Frigga (named after Thor’s deceased mother), Fenrir, Hrönn, Nari, Ymir and Gjalp together.

“Today marks the beginning of your brother’s ascent into manhood.” Thor promised.

“Hey, father. If mother is really your brother, then shouldn’t he have been a ward?” Gjalp asked.

“That… is none of your business.” Thor answered, tactfully. “Now, let’s celebrate like we always do in this family, with a big swig of ale.” Cheers were heard.

“Father… I’ve been thinking,” Mödí stood to look his father directly in the eye. “What if, at least for this generation, we skip the tradition.”

“You would risk plunging the realms into chaos?”

“No, just, what if we bound them to us another way.”

“Like?”

“I don’t know, _marriage_?” Mödí shrugged. “Our military alone is enough to crumble all Nine realms entirely, we’re a bit of a hegemon in that regard, if we only kept the Vanir on our side we’d have an army ten times the size of the rest of the Nine.”

“You can both fulfil your task _and_ marry for political reasons.” Thor pointed out.

“I know it’s just… father, surely you think that this old tradition is wrong? It feels awfully unfair to the person who has to carry the child, that unless they’re an heir they must also never have children after this, that most of them wind up opting to have their ovaries taken out.” Mödí pointed out.

“You’re right, it is **_immensely_** unfair to the person,” Thor agreed. “But it benefits the entire kingdom.”

“How so? The kingdom only refuses to revolt because they **_want_** to refuse it.” Mödí shook his head. “Father, I do hope you realise that should a realm choose to defy you, they will regardless of if you have your seed on their throne or not. In fact, one would think that they would kill that child first.”

“Then what do you propose?”

“How about a reversal of it? How about the heir to each kingdom must live here, on Asgard, until it is time for them to take their throne.” Mödí suggested.

“It could work.” Thor nodded, finally. “Heirs usually aren’t raised by the parents that much, so it wouldn’t be a problem… I will propose this at the next summit, son.”

When everyone left, Loki turned to his son.

“Good job, sweetheart.”

“Thanks mum.”

<Aaaand the very last part of this all! XD>

Hela smiled as she watched Hel training in the courtyard against an army of einherjar. Excellent form, soon she would be able to take over the Nine, an army of dead following behind her.

Hela’s goal was nearly complete.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Complete! :)
> 
> In 11 days I find out what uni I'm going to: it's either a great one or a terrible one. Oh joy! -_-


End file.
